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BY JAMES CTJRRIE, M.D. 





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PUBLISHED liY JOHN LOCKEN 



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THE WORKS 

OP 

ROBERT EUBNSs 

WITH 

AN ACCOUNT OF HIS LIFE, 

AND 

CRITICISM OjX HIS WRITINGS. 

TO WHICH IS PREFIXED, 

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHARACTER AND CONDITION 
OF THE SCOTTISH PEASANTRY. 

BY JAMES CTJRRIE, VIS.. X>. 



A NEW EDITION, 

FOUR VOLUMES COMPLETE IN ONE. 

WITH MANY ADDITIONAL POEMS AND SONGS, 

AND 

AN ENLARGED AND CORRECTED GLOSSARY. 

From the last London Edition of 1834. 



PHILADELPHIA : 
JOHN LOCKEN, No. 6 GEORGE STREET. 



1835. 






I 



too20 



189b 



»eq>©rae®e©a& ®Ra©©a 



op 



THE AUTHOR. 



ROBERT BURNS was born on the 29th day of 
. anuary , 1759, in a small house about two miles from 
Ihe town of Ayr in Scotland. The family name, which 
vhe poet modernized into Burns, was originally BurneB 
Dr Burness. His father, William, appears to have 
oeen early inured to poverty and hardships, which he 
bore with pious resignation, and endeavoured to alle- 
viate by industry and economy. After various at- 
tempts to gain a livelihood, he took a lease of seven 
»crcs of land, with a view of commencing nurseryman 
and public gardener : and having built a house upon it 
with his own hands (an instance of patient ingenuity 
oy no means uncommon among his countrymen in 
humble life,) he married, December 1757, Agnes 
Brown.* The first fruit of his marriage was Robert, 
the subject of the present sketch. 

In his sixth year, Robert was sent to a school, where 
he -nade considerable proficiency in reading and wri- 
ting, and where he discovered an inclination for books 
not very common at so early an age. About the age of 
thirteen or fourteen, he was sent to the parish school 
ofDalrymple, where he increased his acquaintance 
with English Grammar, and gained some knowledge 
of the French. Latin was also recommended to him ; 
jut he did not make any great progress in it. 

The far greater part of his time, however, was em- 
ployed on his father's farm, which, in spite of much 
industry, became so unproductive as to involve the 
family in great distress. His father having taken 
another farm, the speculation was yet more fatal, and 
involved his afTairs in complete ruin. He died, Feb. 13 
1784, leaving behind him the character of a good and 
wise man, and an affectionate father, who, under all 
his misfortunes, struggled to procure his children an 
excellent education ; and endeavoured, both by pre- 
cept and example to form their minds to religiou and 
virtue. 

It was between the fifteenth and sixteenth year of 
flis age, that Robert first " committed the sin of rhyme." 
Having formed a boyish affection for a female who was 
his companion in the toils of the field, he composed a 
song, which, however extraordinary from one at his 
age, and in his circumstances, is far inferior to any of 
his subsequent performances. He was at this time 
" an ungainly, awkward boy," unacquainted with the 
world, but who occasionally had picked up some no- 
tions of history, literature, and criticism, from the few 
books within his reach. These he informs us, were 
Salmon's and Guthrie's Geographical Grammars, the 
Spectator, Pope's Works, some plays of Shakspeare, 
Tull and Dickson on Agriculture, the Pantheon , Locke's 
Essays on the Human understanding, Stackhouse's 
History of the Bible, Justice's British Gardener's Di- 
rectory, Boyle's Lectures, Allan Ramsay's Works, 
Taylor's Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin, a select 
Collection of English Songs, and Hervey's Medita- 

* This excellent woman is still living in the family of 
her son Gilbert.. ( May, 1813.' 



tiong. Of this motley assemblage, it may readily b# 
supposed, that some would be studied, and some read 
superficially. There is reason to think, however, tha; 
he perused the works of the poets with such attention 
as, assisted by his natural vigorous capacity, soon di- 
rected his taste, and enabled him to discriminate ten- 
derness and sublimity from affectation and bombast. 

It appears that from the seventeenth to the vwemy- 
fourth year of Robert's age, he made no considerable 
literary improvement. His accessions of knowledge, 
or opportunities of reading, could not be frequent, but 
no external circumstances could prevent the innate 
peculiarites of his character from displaying themselves 
He was distinguished by a vigorous understanding, 
and an untameable spirit. His resentments werequick 
and, although not durable, expressed with a volubili- 
ty of indignation which could not but silence and over- 
whelm his humble and illiterate associates ; while the 
occasional effusions of his muse on temporary subjects 
which were handed about in manuscript, raised him 
to a local superiority that seemed the earnest of a 
more extended fame. His first motive to compose ver- 
ses, as has been already noticed, was his early and 
warm attachment to the fair sex. His favourites were 
in the humblest walks of life ; but during his posses- 
sion, he elevated them to Laurus and Saccharissas. 
His attachments, however, were of the purer kind, 
and his constant theme the happiness of the married 
state ; to obtain a suitable provision for which, he en- 
gaged in partnership with a flax-dresser, hoping, pro- 
bably, to attain by degrees the rank of a manufactory. 
But this speculation was attended with very little suc- 
cess, and was finally ended by an accidental fire. 

On his father's death he took a farm in conjunction 
with his brother, with the honourable view of provi- 
ding for their iarge and orphan family. But here, too, 
he was doomed to be unfortunate, although, In his 
brother Gilbert, he had a coadjutor of excellent sense, 
a man of uncommon powers both of thought and ex 
pression. 

During his residence on this farm he formed a con- 
nexion with a young woman, the consequences of which 
could not be long concealed. In this dilemma, the 
imprudent couple agreed to maka a legal acknowl- 
edgment of a private marriage, i\nd projected that 
she should remain with her father, while he was to go 
to Jamaica " to push his fortune." This proceeding 
however romantic it may appear, would have rescued 
the lady's character, according to the laws of Scotland 
but it did not satisfy her father, who insisted on hav- 
ing all'the written documents respecting the marriage 
cancelled, and by this unfeeling measure, he intended 
that it should be rendered void. Divorced now from 
all he held dear in the world, he had no resource but 
in his projected voyage to Jamaica, which was preven- 
ted by one of those circumstances that in common 
cases, might pass without observation, but which even- 
tually laid the foundation of his future fame. Fm 
once, his poverty stood his f fiend. Had he been pr« 



IV 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



vided with money to pay for his passage to Jamaica, 
he might have set sail, and been forgotten. But he 
was destitute of every necessary for the voyage, and 
was therefore advised to raise a sum of money by pub- 
lishing his poems in the way of subscription. They 
were accordingly primed at Kilmarnock, in the year 
1786, in a small volume, which was encouraged by sub- 
scriptions for about 350 copies. 

It is hardly possible to express with what eager ad- 
miration these poems were every where received. Old 
and young, high and low, learned and ignorant, all were 
alike delighted. Such transports would naturally find 
their way into the bosom of the author, especially when 
he found that, instead of the necessity of flying from his 
native land, he was now encouraged to goto Edinburgh 
and superintend the publication of a second edition. 

In the metropolis, he was soon introduced into the 
company and received the homage of men of literature, 
rank, and taste ; and his appearance and behaviour at 
this time, as they exceeded all expectation, heightened 
and kept up the curiosity which his works had excited. 
He became the object of universal admiration, and was 
feasted, and flattered, as if U had been impossible to re- 
ward his merit too highly. But what contributed prin- 
cipally to extend his fame into the sister kingdom, was 
His fortunate introduction to Mr. Mackenzie, who, in 
the 97th paper of the Lounger, recommended his poems 
by judicious specimens, and generous and elegant criti- 
cism. From this time, whether present or absent, 
Burns and his genius were the objects which engrossed 
all attention and all conversation. 

It cannot be surprising if this new scene of life, pro- 
duced effects on Burns which were the source of much 
oftheunhappinessof his future life for while he was 
admitted into the company of men of taste, and virtue, 
he was also seduced, by pressing invitations into the so- 
ciety of those whose habits are too social and inconsid- 
erate. It is to be regretted that he had little resolution 
to withstand those attentions which flattered his merits 
and appeared to be the just respect due to a degree of 
superiority, of which he could not avoid beingconscious. 
Among his superiors in rank and merit, his behaviour 
was in general decorous and unassuming ; but among 
his more equal or inferior associates, he was himself 
the source of the mirth of the evening, and repaid the 
attention and submission of his hearers by sallies of wit , 
which, from one of his birth and education, had all tl 
fascination of wonder. Ilis introduction, about the 
same time, into certain convivial clubs of higher rank, 
was an in judicious mark of respect to one who was des- 
tined to return to the plough, and to tlie simple and fru- 
gal enjoyments of a peasant's life. 

During his residence at Edinburgh, his finances were 
considerably improved by the new edition ot his poems - 
and this enabled him to visit several other parts of hi 
native country. He left Edinburgh, May 6, 1787, and 
in the course of his journey was hospitably received at 
the houses of many gentlemen of worth and learning 
He afterwards travelled into England as far as Carlisle 
In the beginning of June he arrived in Ayrshire, after 
an absence of six months, during which he had expe- 
rienced a change of fortune, -to which the hopes of few 
men in his situation could have aspired. His compan- 
ion in some of these tours was a Mr. Nicol, a man 
who was endeared to Burns not only by the warmth of 
his friendship, but by a certain congeniality of senti- 
ment and agreement in habits. This sympathy, in 
some other instances, made our poet capriciously fond 
of companions, who, in the eyes of men of more regular 
conduct, were insufferable. 

During the greater part of the winter 1787 8, Burns 
again resided in Edinburgh, and entered with peculi- 
ar relish into its gayeties. But as the singularities of 
his manner displayed themselves more openly, and 
as the novelty of his appearance wore off, he became 
less an object of general attention. He lingered long 
in this place, in hopes that some situation would have 
been offered which might place him in independence: 
but as it did not seem probable that any thing of that 
kvid would occur soon, he began seriously to reflect 



that tours of pleasure and praise would not provide 
for the wants of a family. Influenced by these consid- 
erations he quitted Edinburgh in the month of Febru- 
ary, 1788. Finding himself master of nearly 5001. 
from the sale of his poems, he took the farm of Ellis- 
"and, near Dumfries, and stocked it with part of this 
money, besides generously advancing 5WW. t» hia 
brother Gilbert, who was struggling with Difficultiea. 
He was now also >egi-ly united to Mrs. Burns,' who 
joined him with tk-»v Aafc-Vwa about the end of the 
year. 

Quitting now speculation for more active pursuits, 
he rebuilt the dwelling house on his farm ; and du- 
ing his engagement in this object, and while the re- 
gulations of the farm had the charm of novelty, he 
passed his time in more tranquillity than he had late- 
ly experienced. But unfortunately, his old habits 
were rather interrupted than broken. He was again 
invited into social parties, with the additional recom- 
mendation of a man who had seen the world, and 
lived with the great ; and again partook of those irre- 
gularities for which men of warm imaginations, 
and conversation-talents, find so many apologies. 
But a circumstance now occurred which threw many 
obsticles in his way as a farmer. 

Burns very fondly cherished those notions of inde- 
pendence, which are dear to the young and ingenious. 
But he had not matured these by reflection ; and he 
was now to learn, a little knowledge of the world will 
overturn many such airy fabrics. If we may form 
any judgment, however, from his correspondence, 
his expectations were not very extravagant, since he 
expected only that some of his illustrious patrons 
would have placed him, on whom they bestowed the 
honours of genius, in a situation where his exertions 
might have been uninterupted by the fatigues of la- 
bour, and the calls of want. Disappointed in this, 
he now formed a design of applying for the office of 
exciseman, as a kind of resource in case his expecta- 
tions from the farm should be baffled. By the inter- 
est of one of his friends this object was accomplished ; 
and after the usual forms were gone through, he was 
appointed exciseman, or, as it is vulgarly called, gau- 
ger of the district in which he lived. 

"His farm was now abandoned to his servants, 
while he betook himself to the duties of his new ap- 
pointment. He might still, indeed, be seen in the 
spring, directing his plough, a labour in which he ex- 
celled, or striding with measured steps, along his turn- 
ed-up furrows, and scattering the grain in the earth. 
Bat hi" farm no lunger occupied the principle part of 
his care or his thoughts. Mounted on horseback, he 
was found pursuing the defaulteis of the revenue, 
among the hills and vales of Nithsdale." 

About this time (1792,) he was solicited, to give his 
aid to Mr. Thomson's Collection of Scottish Songs. 
He wrote, with attention and without delay, for this 
work, all the songs which appear in this volume ; to 
which we have added those he contributed to John- 
sou's Musical Museum. 



Burns also found leisure to form a society for pur- 
chasing and circulating books among the farmers of 
the neighbourhood ; but these, however praiseworthy 
employments, still interrupted the attention he ought 
to have bestowed on his farm, which became so un- 
productive that he found it convenient to resign it, 
and, disposing of his stock and crop, removed to a Bmall 
house which he had taken in Dumfries, a short time 
previous to his lyric engagement with Mr. Thomson. 
He had now received from the Board of Excise, 
an appointment to a new district, the emoluments 
of which amounted to about seventy pounds sterling 
per < 



While at Dumfries, his temptations to irregularity, 
recurred so frequently as nearly to overpower his re- 
solution, and which he appears to have formed with 
a perfect knowledge of what is right and prudent. 
Duriughis quiet moments, however, he wai eularg 



OF THE AUTHOR. 



mg his fame by those admirable compositions he 
sent to Mr. Thomson: and liis temporary sallies and 
flashes of imagination, in the merriment of the social 
table, still bespoke a genius of wonderful strength and 
captivations. It has been said, indeed, that extraor- 
dinary as his poems are, they afford but inadequate 
proof of the powers of their author, or of that 
acuteness of observation, and expression, he displayed 
on common topics in conversation. In the society of 
persons of taste, he could refrain from those indul- 
gences, which, among his more constant compan- 
ns, probably formed his chief recommendation. 

The emoluments of his office, which now compo- 
sed his whole fortune, soon sppeared insufficient for 
the maintenance of his family. He did not, indeed, 
from the first, expect that they could ; but he had 
hopes of promotion and would probably have attain- 
ed it, if he had not forfeited the favour of the Board of 
Excise, by some conversations on the state of public 
affairs, which were deemed highly improper, and 
were probably reported to the Board in a way not 
calculated to lessen their effect. That he should have 
been deceived by the affairs in Fiance during the 
early periods of the revolution, is not surprising he 
only caught a portion of an enthusiasm which was then 
very general ; but that he should have raised his ima- 
gination to a warmth beyond his fellows, will appear 
very singular, when we consider that he had hitherto 
distinguished himself as a Jacobite, an adherent to the 
house of Stewart. Yet he had uttered opinions 
which were thought dangerous ; and information be- 
ing given to the Board, an inquiry was instituted into 
his conduct, that result of which, although rather fa- 
vourable, was not so much as to re-instate him in the 
good opinion of the comissioners. ■• Interest was ne- 
cessary to enable him to retain his office ; and he was 
informed that his promotion was deferred, and must 
depend on his future behaviour. 

He is said to have defended himself, on this occa- 
sion, in a letter addressed to one of the Board, with 
much spirit and skill. He wrote another letter to a 
gentleman, who, hearing that he had been dismissed 
from his situation, proposed a subscription for him. 
In this last, he gives an account of the whole transac- 
tion, and endeavours to vindicate his loyalty ; he also 
contends for an independence of spirit, which he cer- 
tainly possessed, but which yet appears to have par- 
taken of that extravagance of sentiment which are fit- 
ter to point a stanza than to conduct a life. 

A passage in this letter is too characteristic to be 
omitted. — "Often," says our poet, " in blasting an- 
ticipation have 1 listened to some future hackney 
scrioler, with heavy malice of savage stupidity, exult- 
mgiy asserting that Burns, notwithstanding the fan- 
faronade of independence to be found in his works, 
and after having been held up to public view, and to 
public estimation, as a man of some genius, yet quite 
destitute of resources within himself to support his 
borrowed dignity, dwindled into a p.Utry exciseman ; 
and slunk out the rest of his insignificant existance, in 
the meanest of pursuits, and among the lowest of 
mankind." 

This passage has no doubt often been read with 
sympathy. That Burns should have embraced the 
only opportunity in his power to provide for his fami- 
ly, can be no topic of censure or ridicule, and however 
incompatable with the cultivation of gsaiJ3 the busi- 
ness of an exiseman may be, there is nothing of moral 
turpitude or disgrace attached to it. It was not his 
ehoice, it was the only help within his reach : and he 
laid hold of it. But that he shuuld not have found a 
patron generous or wise enough to place him in a sit- 
uation at least free from allurements to " the sin that 
so easily beset him ;" is a circumstance on which the 
admirers of Burns have found it painful to dwell. 

Mr. Mackenzie, in the 97th number of the Lounger, 
tfter mentioning the poet's design of going to the West 
.adies, concludes that paper in words to which suffi- 



cient attention appears not to have been paid ' * I 
trust means may be found to prevent this resolution 
from taking place ; and that I do my country no more 
than jus:ice, when I suppose her ready to stretch out 
the hand to cherish and retain this native poet, whose 
" wood notes wild" possess so much excellence. To 
repair the wrongs of suffering or neglected merit ; to 
call forth genius from obscurity in which it had 
pined indignant, and place it where it may profit or de- 
light the world : — these are exertions which give 
to wealth an enviable superiority, to greatness and to 
patronage a laudable pride. 

Although Burns deprecated the reflections which 
might be made on his occupation of exciseman, it may 
be necessary to add, that from this humble step, he 
foresaw all the contingencies and gradations of promo- 
tion up to a rank on which it is not usual to look with 
contempt. In a letter dated 1Tj4, he states that he i» 
on the list of supervisors ; that in two or three year* 
he should be at the head of that list, and be appoint- 
ed, as a matter of course ; but that then a friend 
might be of service in getting him into a part of the 
kingdom which he would like. A supervisor's income 
varies from about 120/. to 200/. a year : but the busi- 
ness is " an incessant drudgery, and would be near- 
ly a complete bar to every species of literary pur- 
suit." He proceeds, however, to observe, that the 
moment he is appointed supervisor he might be nomi- 
nated on the Collector's list, " and this is always a 
business purely of political patronage. A collectorship 
varies from much better than two hundred a year to 
near a thousand. Collectors also come forward by 
precedency on the list, and have besides a handsome 
income, a life of complete leisure. A life of literary 
leisure with a decent competence, is the summit of my 



He was doomed, however, to continue in his present 
employment for the remainder of his days, which 
were not many. His constitution was now rapidV 
decaying ; yet, his resolutions of amendment were 
but feeble. His temper became irritable and gloomy, 
and he was even insensible to the kind forgiveness anf 1 
soothing attentions of his affectionate wife. In the 
month of June, 1796, he removed to Brow, about ten 
miles from Dumfries, to try the effect of sea bathing ; 
a remedy that at first, he imagined, relieved the rheu- 
matic pains in his limbs, with which he had been af- 
flicted for some months : but this was immediately 
followed by a new attack of fever. When brought 
back to his house at Dumfries, on the 18th of July, he 
was no longer able to stand upright. The fever in- 
creased, attended with delirium and debility, and on 
the 21st he expired, in the thirty-eighth year of hia 
age. 

He left a widow and four sons, for whom the inhab- 
itants of Dumfries opened a subscription, which being 
extended to England, produced a considerable sum 
for their immediate necessities.* This has since been 
augmented by the profits of the edition ofhisworks l 
printed in four volumes, 8vo ; to which Dr Currie oi 
Liverpool, prefixed a life, written with much elegance 
and taste. 

As to the person of our poet, he is described as being 
nearly five feet ten inches in height, and of a form that 
indicated agility as well as strength. His well-raised 
forehead, shaded with black curling hair, expressed 
uncommon capacity. His eyes were large, dark, full 
of ardour and animation. His face was well formed, 
and his countenance uncommonly interesting. His 
conversation is universally" allowed to have been un- 

* Mrs. Burns continues to live in the house in which 
the Poet died ; the eldest son, Robert, is at present in 
the Stamp Office : the other two are officers in the 
East India company's army, William is in Bengal, 
and James in Madrass, (May, 1813.,) Wallace, tb* 
second son, a lad of great promise died of a consump- 
tion. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR. 



commonly fascinating, and rich in wit, humour, whim, 
ana occasionally in serious and apposite reflection. 
i nw excellence, however proved a lasting misfortune 
to him; for while it procured him the friendship of 
men of character and taste, in whose company his hu- 
mo ™* "» guarded and chaste, it had also allurements 
tor .be lowest of mankind, who know no difference be- 



tween freedom and licentiousness, and are never so 
completely gratified as when genius condescends to 
give a kind of sanction to their crossness. He died 
poor, but not in debt, and left behmd him a name, the 
fame of which will not won be eclipsed. 



ON 



THE DEATH OF BURNS. 



BY MR. ROSCOE. 



REAR high thy bleak majestic hills, 

Thy sheltered valleys proudly spread, 
And, Scotia, pour thy thousand rills, 

And wave thy heaths with blossoms red ; 
Bat, ah ! what poet now shall tread 

Thy airy heights, thy woodland reign, 
Since he the sweetest bard is dead 

That ever breath'd the soothing strain ? 

Af green thy towering pines may grow, 

As clear thy streams may speed along ; 
As bright thy summer suns may glow, 

And wake again thy feathery throng ; 
But now, unheeded is the song, 

And dull and lifeless all around, 
For his wild harp lies all unstrung, 

And cold the hand that wak'd its sound 

What tho' thy vigorous offspring rise 

In arts and arms thy sons excell ; 
Tho' beauty in thy daughters' eye3, 

And health in every feature dwell ; 
Yet who shall now their praises tell, 

In strains impassion'd, fond, and free, 
Since he no more the Song shall swell 

To love, and liberty, and thee ! 

With step-dame eye and frown severe 

His hapless youth why didst thou view? 
For all thy joys to him were dear, 

And all his vows to thee were due : 
Nor greater bliss his bosom knew, 

In opening youth's delightful prime, 
Than when thy favouring ear he drew 

To listen to his chanted rhyme. 

Thy lonely wastes and frowning skies 

To him were all with rapture fraught ; 
He heard with joy the tempests rise 

That wak'd him to sublimer thought); 
And oft thy winding dells he sought, 

Where wild flowers pour'd their rath perfume, 
And with sincere devotion brought 

To thee the summer's earliest bloom. 

Btt*., ah t no fond maternal smile 

His unprotected youth enjoy'd ; 
His limbB inur'd to early toil, 

His days with early hardships tried J 
And more to mark the gloomy void, 

And bid him feel his misery, 



Before his infant eyes would glide 
Day-dreams of immortality. 

Yet, not by cold neglect depresa'd, 

With sinewy arm he turn'd the soil, 
Sunk with the evening sun to rest, 

And met at morn his earliest smile. 
Wak'd by his rustic pipe, meanwhile 

The powers of fancy came along, 
And soothed his length en 'd hour of toil 

With native wit and sprightly song. 

—Ah I days of bliss, too swiftly fled, 

When vigorous health from labour spring, 
And bland contentment smooths the bed, 

And sleep his ready opiate brings ; 
And hovering round on airy wings 

Float the light forms of young desire, 
That of unutterable things 

The soft and shadowy hope inspire. 

Now spells of mightier power prepare, 

Bid brighter phantoms round him dance: 
Let flattery spread her viewless snare, 

And fame attract his vagrant glance : 
Let sprightly pleasure too advance, 

Unveil'd her eyes, unclasp 'd her xone, 
Till lost in love's delirious trance 

He scorns the joys his youth has known. 

Let friendship pour her brightest blaze, 

Expanding all the bloom of soul j 
And mirth concentre all her rays, 

And point them from the sparkling bow) ) 
And let the careless moments roll 

In social pleasures unconfin'd, 
And confidence that spurns control, 

Unlock the inmost springs of mind. 



And lead his steps those bowers t 

Where elegance with splendour Ties, 
Or science bids her favour'd throng 

To more refin'd sensations rise ; 
Beyond the peasant's humbler joys, 

And freed from each laborious strife, 
There let him learn the bliss to prize 
That waits the sons ofcolish'd life. 

Then whilst his throbbing veins beat hi 
With every impulse of delight, 



nu 



ON THE DEATH OF BURNS 



Dash from his lips the cup of joy, 

And shroud the scene in shades of night ; 

And let despair, with wizard light, 
Disclose the yawing gulf below, 

And pour incessant on his sight, 
Her spectred ills and shapes of wo t 

And show beneath a cheerless shed, 

With sorrowing heart and streaming eye*t 
In silent grief where droops her head, 

The partner of his early joys ; 
And let his infant's tender cries 

His fond parental succour claim, 
And bid him hear in agonies 

A husband and a father's name. 

"Tit done—the powerful cnaim succeeds , 
His high reluctant seim oeuos : 



In bitterness of soul he bleeds, 
Nor longer with his fate contends. 

An idiot laugh the welkin rends 
As genius thus degraded lies j 

Till pitying Heaven the veil extends 
That shrouds the Poet's ardent eyes. 

—Rear high thy bleak, majestic hills, 

Thy shelter'd valleys proudly spread, 
And, Scotia, pour thy thousand rills, 

And wave thy heaths with blossoms red j 
But never more shall poet tread 

Thy airy heights, thy woodland reign, 
Since he the sweetest bard is dead 

That ever breath'd tlie soothing strsJn. 



PREFACE 

TO THE 

FIRST EDITION 

OF 

BURNS' POEMS, 

PUBLISHED AT KILMARNOCK IN 1786. 



The following trifles are not the production of the 
poet, who, with all the advantages of learned art, and, 
perhaps amid the elegancies and idlenesses of upper 
life, looks down for a rural theme, with an eye to 
Theocritus or Virgil. To the author of this, these and 
other celebrated names, their countrymen, are, at 
least in their original language, a fountain shut up, 
and a book sealed. Unacquainted with the necessa- 
ry requisites for commencing poet by rule, he sings the 
Sentiments and manners he felt and saw in himself 
and his rustic compeers around him, in his and their 
native language. Though a rhymer from his earliest 
years, at least from the earliest impulses of the softer 
passions, it was not till very lately that the applause, 
perhaps the partiality, of friendship, awakened his 
vanity so far as to make him think any thing of his worth 
showing ; and none of the following works were com 
posed with a view to the press. To amuse himself 
with the little creations of his own fancy, amid the 
toils and fatigues of a laborious life ; to transcribe the 
various feelings, the loves, the griefs, the hopes, the 
fears, in his own breast : to find some kind of counter- 
poise to the struggles of a world, always an alien scene, 
a task uncouth to the poetical mind—these were his 
motives for courting the Muses, and in these he found 
poe,try lo be its own reward. 

Now that he appears in the public character of an 
author, he does it with fear and trembling. So dear 
is fame to the rhyming tribe, that even he, an obscure, 
nameless Bard, shrinks aghast at the thought of being 
branded as — An impertinent blockhead, obtruding his 
nonsense on the world ; and, because he can make a 
•hify to jingle a few doggerel Scotch rhymes together, 
looking upon himself as a poet of no small conse- j 
quence, forsooth I I 



It is an observation of that celebrated poet, Shen- 
stone, whose divine elegies do honour to our lan- 
guage, our nation, and our species, that " Humili- 
ty has depressed many a genius to a hermit, but nev ■ 
er raised one to fame !" If any critic catches at the 
word genius, the author tells him once for all, that he 
certainly looks upon himself as possessed of some poet- 
ic abilities, otherwise his publishing in the manner he 
has done, would be a manoeuvre below the worst 
character, which, he hopes, his worst enemy will ever 
give him. But to the genius of a Raimay, or the glo- 
rious dawnings of tbe poor unfortunate Fergusson, he, 
with equal unaffected sincerity, declares, that even in 
his highest pulse of vanity, he has not the most dis- 
tant pretensions. These two justly admired Scotch 
poets he has often had in his eye in the following pie- 
ces ; but rather with a view to kindle at their flame 
than for servile imitation. 



To his Subscribers, the author returns his most sin- 
cere thanks. Not the mercenary bow over a counter, 
but the heart-throbbing gratitude of the bard, con- 
scious how much he owes to benevolence and friend- 
ship, for gratifying him, if he deserves it, in that dear- 
est wish of every poetic bosom— to be distinguished. 
He begs his readers, particularly the learned and the 
polite who may honour him with a perusal, that they 
will make every allowance for education and circum- 
stances of life ; but if, after a fair, candid, and impar- 
tial criticism, he shall stand convicted of dullness and 
nonsense, let him be done by as he would in thatcasa 
do by others — let him be condemned, without mercy 
to contempt and oblivion. 



DEDICATION 

OF THE 

SECOND EDITION 

OP THE 

POEMS FORMERLY PRINTED. 

TO THE 

NOBLEMEN AND GENTLEMEN 



CALEDONIAN HUNT. 



My Lords and Gentlemen, 
A Scottish Bard, proud of the name, and whose high- 
est ambtion is to sing in his Country's service— where 
•hall he so properly look for patronage as to the illus- 
trious names of his native Laud ; those who bear the 
honours and inherit the virtues of their Ancestors ? The 
Poetic, Genius of my Country found me, as the pro- 
phetic bard Elijah did Elisha— at the plough; and 
threw her inspiring mantle over me. She bade me sing 
the loves, the loys, the rural scenes and rural pleasures 
nt my native soil, in my native tongue : I tuned my wild 
arlesa notes, as she inspired— She whispered me to 
come to this ancient Metropolis of Caledonia, and lay 
aay Songs under your honoured protection.; I now obey 
her dictates. 

Though much indebted to vour goodness, I do not ap- 
proach you, my Lords and Gentlemen, in the usual 
style of dedication, to thank you for past favours ; that 
path is so hackneyed by prostituted learning, that honest 
rusticity it ashamed of it. Nor do I present this Ad- 
dress with the venal soul of a servile Author, looking 
for a continuation of those favours ; I was bred to the 
Plough, and am independent. I come to claim the com. 
•son Scottish name with you, my illustrious Country- 
neo ; and to tell the world that I glory in the title. I 
•one to congratulate my Country, that the blood of 



her ancient heroes s'.ill runs oncentaminated ; and that 
from your courage, knowledge, and public spirit, ahe 
may expect protection, wealth and liberty. In the last 
place, I come to proffer my warmest wishes toth* 
Great Fountain of Honour, the Monarch of the Uni 
verse, for your welfare and happiness. 

When you go forth to waken the Echoes, in the an- 
cient and favourite amusement of your forefathers, 
may Pleasure ever be of your party ; and may Social 
Joy await your return : When harrassed in courts or 
camps with the jostlings of bad men and bad measures, 
may the honest consciousness of injured worth attend 
your return to your native SeatB ; and may domestic 
Happiness, with a smiling welcome, meet yon at your 
gates ! May corruption shrink at your kindling indig- 
nant glance ; and may tyrrany in the Ruler, and licen- 
tiousness in the People, equally find you an inexorable 
foe 

I have the honour to be, 
With the sheerest gratitude, 
and higwst respect, 
My 1„ 4a and Gentlemen, 
5Tour most tie »d bumble servant, 

ROBERT BURN* 

Edinburgh, 
April 4, 1787 



POEMS, 

CHIEFLY SCOTTISH. 



THE TWA DOGS.— A Tale. 



'TWAS in that place o' Scotland's isle, 
That bears the name o' Auld King Coil, 
Upon a bonnie day in June, 
When wearing thro' the afternoon, 
Twa dogs that were na thrang at ha me, 
Forgather'd anceupon a time. 

Thenrat I'll name, they ca'd him Ccesar, 
Was keepit for his Honour's pleasure ; 
His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs, 
Show'd he was nane o' Scotland's dogs ; 
But whalpit some place far abroad, 
Where sailors gang to fish for Cod. 

His locked, letter'd, braw brass collar, 
Show'd him the gentleman and scholar ; 
But though he was o' high degree, 
Thefient a pride, na pride had he ; 
But wad hae spent an hour caressin, 
Ev'n wi' atinkler-gypsey's messin. 
At kirk or market, mill or smiddie, 
Nae tawtedtyke, tho' e'er sae buddie, 
But he wad stawn't, as glad to see him, 
And stroan't on stanes an' hillocks wi' him. 

The titherwas a ploughman's collie, 
A rhyming, ranting, raving billie, 
Wna fcr his friend an' comrade had him, 
And in his freaks had Luath ca'd him, 
After some dog in Highland sang, * 
Was made lang syne — Lord knows how lang. 

He was a gash an' faithfu' tyke, 
As every lap a sheugh or dyke. 
His honest, sonsie, baws'nt face, 
Weel clad wi' coat o' glossy black ; 
His gawcietail, wi' upward curl, 
Hung o'er his hurdies wi' a swurl. 

Nae doubt but they were fain o' ither, 
An' unco pack an' thich thegither ; 
Wi' social nose whyles snuff'd and snowkit, 
Whyles mice an' moudieworts they howkit ; 
Whyles scour'dawa' in lang excursion, 
An' worry' i ither in diversion ; 
Until wi' damn weary grown, 
Upon a knowe thye sat them down, 

* Cuehullin'i dog in Ossian's Fingal. 



And there began a lang digression 
About the lords o' the creation, 

CJESAR. 

I'veaften wonder'd, honest Luath, 
What sort o' life poor dogs like you have. 
An 'when the gentry's life I saw 
What way poor bodies liv'd ava. 

Our Laird gets in his racked rents, 
His coals, his kain, and a' his stents, 
He rises when he likes himself ; 
His flunkies answer at the bell ; 
Heca's his coach, he ca's his hone ; 
He draws a bonnie silken purse 
As lang's my tail, whare, thro' the steekt 
The yallow letter'd Geordie keeks. 

Frae morn to e'en it's nought but toiling 
At baking, roasting, frying, boiling ; 
An' tho' the gentry first are stechim, 
Yet ev'n the ha' folk fill their pechan 
Wi' sauce, ragouts, andsiclike trashtrie. 
That's little short o' downright wastrie. 
Our Whipper-in, wee blastit wonner, 
Poor worthless elf, it eats a dinner, 
Better than ony tenant man 
His Honour has in a' the Ian' : 
An' what poor cot-folk pit their painch in, 
I own it's past my comprehension. 

LUATH. 

Trowth, Caesar, whyles they'ie fash't eneugh J 
A cottar howkin in a sheugh, 
Wi'dirty stanes biggin a dyke, 
Baring a quarry, and sic like, 
Himself, a wife, he thus sustains, 
A smytrie o' wee dubbie weans, 
An' nought but his han' darg, to keep 
Them right and tight in thack an' rape. 

An' when they meet wi' sair disasters, 
Like loss o' health, or want o' masters, 
Ye maist wad think, a wee touch langer, 
An' they maun starveo' cauld an' hunger ; 
But, how it comes, I never kenn'd yet. 
They're maistly wonder fu' contented ; 



12 



BURN'S POMES. 



An* buirdly chieli, an' clever hiiiies, 
Are bred in tic a way at thii ti. 

CESAR. 

But then to see how ye're negleckit, 
IIowhufTd.andcufrd.and disrespecldt 1 
I< — d, man, our gentry care as little 
For delvera, ditchers, an* sic cattle ; 
They gang as saucy by poor fo'k, 
As I wad by a stinking brock. 

I've notic'd on our Laird's court-day, 
An' mony a time my heart's been wae, 
Poor tenant bodies scant o'cash, 
How they maun thole a factor's snash : 
He'll stamp an' threaten, curse an' swear, 
He'll apprehend them, poind their gear ; 
While they maun, staun', wi' aspect humble, 
An' hear it a", an' fear an' tremble. 

I see how folk live than hae riches ; 
But surely poor folk maun be wretches ? 

LUATH. 

They're nae sae wretched's ane wad think ; 
Tho'constantly on poortith's brink : 
They're sae accustom'd wi, the sight, 
The view o't gies them little fright. 

Then chance an' fortune are sae guided, 
They're ay in less or mair provided ; 
An'tho' fatigued wi' close employment, 
A blink o' rests's a sweet enjoyment. 

The dearest comfort o' their lives. 
Their grushie weans an' faithfu' wives ; 
The prating things are just their pride, 
That rweetens a' their fire-side. 

An' whyles twalpennie worth o' nappy 
Can vnak the bodies unco happy ; 
They lay aside their private cares, 
To mend the Kirk and State affairs : 
They'll talk o'patronage and priests, 
Wi' kindling fury in their breasts, 
Or tell what new taxation's comin, 
An' ferlie at the folk in Lon'on. 

As bleak-fac'd Hallowmass returns, 
They get the jovial, ranting kirns, 
When rural life, o' ev'ry station, 
Unite in common recreation ; 
Love blinks, Wit slaps, an' social Mirth, 
Forgets there's Care upo' the earth. 

That merry day the year begins, 
They bar the door on frosty winds ; 
The nappy reeks wi' mantling ream, 
An' sheds a heart-inspiring steam ; 
The luntin pipe, an' seeshin mill, 
Are handed round wi' richt guide will ; 
The cantie auld folks crackin crouse, 
The young anes rantin thro, the house,—. 
My heart has been sae fain to see them, 
That 1 for joy hae barkit wi' them. 



Still it's owre true that ye baa said, 
Sic game is now owre aften play'd. 
There's monie a creditable stock, 
O' decent, honest, fawsont fo'k, 
Are riven out baith root and branch, 
Some rascal's pridefu' greed toquencb, 
Wha thinks to knit himsel the faster 
In favour wi* some gentle master, 
Wha, aiblius, thrang a-parlimentin, 
For Britain's guide his saul indentin— 

OESAR. 

Haith, lad, ye little ken about it; 
For Britain's guid ! guid faith I I doubt it 
Say rather, gaun as Premiers lead him, 
An' saying aye or no's they bid him, 
At operas an' plays parading, 
Mortgaging gambling masquerading ; 
Or may be, in a frolic daft, 
To Hague or Calais takes a waft, 
So make a tour, an' take a whirl, 
To learn bon ton, an' see the wart'. 

There, at Vienna or Versailles 
He rives his father's auld entails; 
Or by Madrid he takes the rout, 
To thrum guitars, and fecht wi' nowt ; 
Or down Italian vista startles, 
Wh-re-hunting among groves o' myrtle* 
Then bouses drumly German water, 
To make himself look fair and fatter, 
An' clear the consequential sorrows, 
Love-gifts of Carnivail signoras. 
For Britain's guid I for her distruction I 
Wi' dissipation, feud, an' faction. 

LUATH. 

Hech man ! dear Sirs ! is that the gate 
They waste sae mony a braw estate I 
Are we sae foughten an' harass'd 
For gear to gang the gale at last I 

O would they stay aback frae courts, 
An' please themselswi' kintra sports, 
It wad for ev'ry ane be better, 
The Laird, the Tenant, and the Cotter I 
For thae frank, rantin, ramblin billies, 
Fieuthaet o' them's ill-hearted fellows ; 
Except for breakin o' their timmer, 
Orspeakin lightly o' their iimmer, 
Or shootin o' a hare or moor-cock, 
The ne'er a bit they 're ill to poor folk. 

But will ye tell me, Master Caesar, 
Sure great folk's life's a life o' pleasure i 
Nae cauld nor hunger e-er can steer them, 
The vera thought o't need na fear them. 

C.KSAR 

L— -d, man, were ye but whyles whare I an 
The gentles ye wad ne'er envy 'em. 

It's true they need na strave or sweat, 
Thro' winter's cauld, or simmer's heat ; 
They've nae sair wark to craze their banes, 
An' fill auld age wi' gripes an' granes : 



BURNS' POEMS. 



13 



But human bodies are sic fools, 

For a' their colleges and schools, 

That when na<j real ills perplex them, 

They make enow themselves to vex them ; 

An' ay the less they hae to sturt them, 

In like proportion less will hurt them. 

A country fellow at the pleugh, 

His acres till'd, he's right eneugh ; 

A kintra lassie at her wheel, 

Her dizzens done, she's unco weel : 

But Gentlemen, an' Ladies warst, 

Wi' ev'ndown want o'wark are curst. 

They loiter, lounging, lank, an' lazy : 
Tho' deil haet ails them, yet uneasy ; 

Their days, insipid, dull, an' tasteless ; 

Their nights unquiet, langan' restless ; 
An' e'en their sports, their balls an' races, 
Their galloping thro' public places. 
There's sic parade, sic pomp, an' art, 
The joy can scarcely reach the heart. 
The men cast out in party matches, 
Then sowther a' in deep debauches ; 
Ae night they're mad wi' drink an' wh-ring, 
Niest day their life is past enduring. 
The Ladies arm-in-arm in clusters, 
As great and gracious a' as sisters ; 
But hear their absent thoughts o' ither, 
They're a' run deils an' jads thegither. 
Whyles o'er the wee bit cup an' platie, 
They sip the scandal portion pretty ; 
Or lee-lang.nights, wi' crabbit leuks 
Poreowre the devil's pictur'd beuks ; 
Stake on a chance a farmer's stackyard, 
An' cheat like onie unhang'd blackguard. 

There's some exception, man an' woman ; 
But this is Gentry's life in common. 

By this, the sun was out o' sight, 
An' darker gloaming brought the night ! 
The bum-clock humm'd wi' lazy drone ; 
The kye stood rowtin i' the loan ; 
When up they gat, and shook their lugs, 
Rejoiced they were na men but dogs ; 
An' each took aS his several way, 
Resolv'd to meet some ither day. 



SCOTCH DRINK 

Gie him strong drink, until he wink, 

That's sinking in despair ; 
An' liquor guid to fire his bluid, 

That's press'd wi' grief an' care ; 
There let him bouse, an' deep c'onse, 

Wi' bumpers flowing o'er, 
Till he forgets his loves or debts, 

An' minds bis griefs no more. 

Solomon's Proverbs xxx, 



LET other poets raise a fraea9 
'Bout Tines, an' wines, an' drunken Bacchus, 
An crabbit names an' stories wrack us, 

An' grate our lug, 



I sing the juice Scots beer can make us, 
In glass or jug. 

O thou , my Muse ! guid auld Scotch Drink : 
Whether thro' wimpling worms thou jink, 
Or, richly brown, reamo'er the brink, 

In glorious faem, 
Inspire me, till I lisp and wink, 

To sing thy name t 

Let husky Wheat the laughs adorn, 
An' Aits set up their awnie horn, 
/ :i' Pease and Beans at e'en or morn, 

1'urfume the plain, 
Leezeme on thee, John Barleycorn, 

Thou king o' grain I 

On thee af*. Scotland chows her cood, 
In scouple s; ones, the waleo' food 1 
Or turablin in the boiling flood 

Wi' kail an' beef; 
But when thou pours thy strong heart's blood, 
There thou shines chiet 

Food fills the wame, an' keeps us livin J 
Tho' life's a gift no worth receivin, 
When heavy dragg'd wi' pine an' grievin, 

But,oil'dby thee, 
The wheels o' life gae down-hill, scrievin, 

Wi' rattlin glee. 
Thou clears the head o' doited Lear ; 
Thou cheers the heart o' droopin Cat ; 
Thou strings the nerves o' Labour sair, 

At's weary toil, 
Thou even brightens dark Despair 

Wi' gloomy smile. 

Aft, clad in massy siller weed, 
Wi' Gentles thou erects thy head ; 
Yet humbly kind in time o' need, 

The poor man's wine • 
His wee drap patritch, or his bread, 

Thou kitchens fine. 

Thou art the life o' public haunts ; 
But thee, what were our fairs and rants ? 
Ev'n godly metings o' the saunts, 

By thee inspir'd, 
When gaping they besiege the tents, 

Are doubly fir'd. 

That merry night we get the corn in, 
O sweetly then thou reams the horn in I 
Or reekin on a New-morning year 

In cog or bicker, 
An' just a wee drap sp'ritual burn in, 

An' gusty sucker I 

When Vulcan gies his bellows breath , 
An' ploughmen gather wi' their graith 
O rare ! to see thee fizz an freath 

I' th' luggit cs. 
Then Burnewin* comes on like dea*' 
At every cha 

♦ Burnewin—burn-the-vind the Blacksmith— ex »P- 
propriate title. E. 



14 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Nae mercy, then, for aim or steel ; 
The brawnie, baiiiie, ploughman chicl, 
Brings hard owrehip, wi' sturdy wheel, 

The strong forehammer, 
Till block an' studdie ring an' reel 

Wi' dinsome clamour. 

When skirlin weanies see the light, 
Thou makes the gossips clatter bright, 
How fumblin duifs their dearies slight ; 

Wae worth the name ! 
Nae howdie gets a social night, 

Or plack frae them. 

When neebors anger at a plea, 
An' just as wud as wud can be, 
How easy can the barley bree 

Cement the quarrel 1 
It's aye the cheapest lawyer's fee 

To taste the barrel. 

Alake ! that e'er my Muse has reason 
To wyte her countrymen wi' treason I 
But monie daily weet their weason 

Wi' liquors nice, 
An* hardly, in a winter's season, 

E'er 3pier her price. 

Wae worth that brandy burningtrash ! 
Pell source o' monie a pain an'brash 
Twins monie a poor, doylt, drunken hash, 

O' half his days 
An' sends' besides' auld Scotland's cash 

To her warst faes. 

Ye Scots, wha wish auld Scoland well ! 
Ye chief, to you my tale I tell, 
Poor plackless deevils like mysel ! 

It sets you ill, 
Wi' bitter, dearthfu'wines tomell, 

Or foreign gill. 

May gravels round his blather wrench, 
An' gouts torment him inch by inch, 
Wha twists iiis gruntle wi' a glunch 

O' sour disdain, 
Out owre a glass o' whisky punch 

W honest men. 

O Whisky! saul o' plays an' pranks ! 
Accept a Bardie's humble thanks ! 
When wanting thee, what tuneless cranks 

Ave my poor verse3 ! 
Thou comes — they rattled i' their ranks 

At ither's a — si 

Three, Ferintosh ! O sadly lost ! 
Scotland, lament frae coast to coast 1 
Now colic grips, an' barkin hoast 

May kill us a'; 
For royal Forbes' charter'*! boast 

Is ta'enawa! 

Thae curst horse-leeches o' the Excise, 
Wha mak the Whisky StcUs their prize ! 
H»ud up thy ban', Deil I ance, twice, thrice ! 

There, seize the blinkers 1 



And bake them up in brunstane pies 

For poor d— n'd drinken. 

Fortune! if thou '11 but gie me still 
Hale breeks, a scone, and Whisky gill. 
An' rowlh o' rhyme to rave at will, 

Tak a' the rest, 
An' deal't about as thy blind skill 

Directs thee oest. 



THE AUTHOR'S 

EARNEST CRY AND PRAYER 

TO THE 

SCOTCH REPRESENTATIVES, 

IN THE 

HOUSE OF COMMONS. 



Dearest of Destination! last and best 

How art thou lost t 

Parody on Milton 



Ye Irish Lords, ye Knights an' Squires, 
Wha represent our brughs an' shires, 
An' doucely manage our affairs 

In parliament, 

To you a simple Poet's prayers 

Are humbly sent. 

Alas ! my ruupet Muse is hearse, 
Your honors' hearts wi' grief 'twad pierce, 
To see her sittin un her a — 

Low i' the dust, 
An' scriechin out prosaic 

An' like tobrustl 

Tell them wha hae the chief direction, 
Scotland an' roe's in great aifliction, 
E'er sin' they laid that curst restriction, 

i )n Aquavitce; 
An' rouse them up to strong conviction, 

An' move their-pity. 

Stand forth, an' tell yon Premier Youth, 
The honest, open, linked truth : 
Tell him o' mine an' Scotland's drouth, 

His servants humble! 
The muckle deevil blaw ye south, 

If ye dissemble! 

Does ony great man glunch an' gloom? 
Speak out, an' never fash your thumb 1 
Let posts an' pensions sink or soom 

Wi' them wha grant 'em : 
If honestly they cana come, 

Far better want e'in. 

* This was written before the act anent the 
Distilleries, of session 1786; for which Scotland 
the Author return their most grateful thanks. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



15 



la gath'ring votes you were na slack ; 
Now stand as tightly by your tack ; 
Ne'er claw your lug, an' fid»e your back, 

An' human' haw; 
But raise your arm, aa' tell your crack 
Before them a'. 

Paint Scotland greeting owre her thrissle ; 
Her mutchkin sujur as loom's-a whissle : 
Au' d— mu'd Excisemen in a bussle, 
Seizin a Slell, 
Triumphant crushin't like a mussel 

Or iampit shell. 
Then on the tither hand present her, 
A blackguard Smugler right behint her, 
Au' cheek-for-chow, a chuffie Vintner, 

Colleaguiugjoin, 
Picking her pouch as bare as winter 

Ufa' kind coin. 

Is there, that hears the name o' Scot, 
But feels his heart 's blind rising hot, 

To see his poor aukl Mule's pot 

Thus dung-in staves, 

An' plunder'do' her hindmost groat 

By gallows knaves? 

Aias 1 I'm but a nameless wight, 
Trode i' the mire clean out o' sight ; 
But could i like Monlgom'ries fight, 

O r gab like Boswell 
There's some sark-necks I wad draw tight, 

An' tie some hose well. 

God Bless your Honors, can ye see't 
The kind, auld, cantie Carlin greet, 
Au' no get warmly to your feet, 

An' gar them hear it, 
'An' tell them wi' a patriotic heat, 

Ye winna bear it 1 

Some o' you nicely ken the laws, 
To round the period, an' pause, 
An' wi' rhetoric clause on clause 

To inak harangues ; 
Then echo thro' Saint Stephen's wa's 

Auld Scotland's wrung. 

Dempster, a true blue Scot, I'se warran ; 
Theeaith-detesting, chaste Kilkcrran;* 
An' that glib-gabbet highland Earon, 

The Laird o' Graham,^ 
An' ane, a chap that's d— mn'd auldfarran, 
Dundas his name. 

Erskine, a spunkie Norland Wilis ; 
True Campbells, Frederick an 7 Tlay ; 
An' Livingsta,:, the bauld Sir Willie : 

An' monie ithers 
Whom auld Demosthenes or Tully 

Might own for brithers. 

Arouse, my boys 1 exert your mettle 

• Sir Adam Ferguson. E. 

t The present Duke of Montrose. (1800.) E. 



To get auld Scotland back her kettle ; 
Or faith 1 I'll wad my new pleugh-pettle, 

Ye'll see't, orlaug, 
She'll teach you, wi' areckin whittle, 

Anither sang. 

This while she's been in crankous mood, 
Her lost Militia fired her bluid ; 
(Deil na they never mair do guid, 

Play'd her that pliskie I) 
An' now she like to rin red-wud 

About her Whisky. 

An' L — d, if ance they pit her till't, 
Her tartan petticoat she'll kilt, 
An' durk an' pistol at her belt, 

She'lltak the streets, 
An' rin her whittle to the hilt, 

I' th' first she meets I 

For G — d sake, Sirs I then speak.her fair, 
An' straik her caunie wi' the hair, 
An' to the muklu house repair, 

Wi' instant speed, 
An' strive wi' a' your Wit and Lear, 

To get remead. 

Yon ill-tongu'd tinkler, Charlie Fox, 
May taunt you wi' his jeers and mocks ; 
But gie hhn't het, my hearty cocks ! 

E'en cowe the caddie ; 
An' send him to his dicing box 

Au' sportin lady. 

Tell yon guid bluid o' auld Boconnock's 
I'll lie his debt twa mushlam bonnocks, 
An' drink his health in auld Nanse Tinnock* 

Nine times a-week, 
If he some scheme, like tea an' winnock's 

Wad kindly seek. 

Could he some commutation broach, 
I'll pledge my aith in guid braid Scotch, 
He need na fear their foul reproach 

Nor erudition, 
Yon mixtie-maxtie queer hotch-potch, 

The Coalition. 

Auld Scotland has a raucle tongue ; 
She's just a devil wi' a rung ; 
An' if she promise auld or young 

To tak their part, 

Tho' by the neck she should be strung, 

She'll no desert. 

An' now, ye chosen Five-and-Forty, 
May still your Mither's heart support ye J 
Then, though a Minister grow dorty, 

An' kick your place, 
Ye'll snap youi fingers, poor an' hearty, 
Before his face. 
God bles3 your Honours a' your days, 
Wi' sowps o' kail and brats o' claise, 

* A worthy old Hostess of the Author's In MaucMins, 
where he sometimes studied Politics over* glas» of 
guid auld Scotch Drink. 



10 



BURNS' POEMS. 



In spite 'o a' the thievish kaes, 

That haunt St. Jamie's 
Your humble Poet sings an' prays 

While Rab his name is. 



POSTSCRIPT. 

Lethalf-starv'd slaves, in warmer skies 
See future wines, rich clust'ring, rise ; 
Their lot auld Scotland ne'er envies, 

But blythe and frisky, 
She eyes her freeborn martial boys, 

Takaff their Whisky. 

What tho' their Phebua kinder' warms, 
While fragrance bloom, and beauty charms ; 
When wretches rage, in famish'd swarms, 

The scented groves, 
Or hounded forth, dishonour arms 

In hungry droves. 

Their gun's a burden on their sliouther 
They downabide the stink o' powther ; 
Their bauldest thoughts ' a hankr'ing swither 

To stan' or rin, 
Tillskelp— a shot— they're aff, a' throwther, 
To save their skin. 

But bring a Scotsman fraehis hill, 
Clap in his check a Highland gill, 
Say, such is royal George's will, 

An' there's the foe, 
He has nae thought but how to kill 

Twa at a blow. 

Nae cauld, faint-hearted doubtings tease him ; 
Death comes, wi' fearless eye he sees him ; 
Wi' bluidy hand a welcome gies him i 

An' when he fa's, 
His latest draught, o' breath he sees him 
In faint huzzas, 

Sages their solemn een may steek, 
An' raise a philosophic reek, 
And physically causes seek, 

In clime and season ; 
But tell me fVTiiskys name in Greek, 

I'll tell the reason. 

Scotland, my auld, respected Mither 1 
Tho' whiles ye moistify your leather, 
Till whare ye sit, on craps o' heather, 

Ye tine your dam ; 
Freedom and Whisky gang thegilher! 

Tak aff your dram. 



THE HOLY FAIR.* 



A robe of seeming truth and trust 
Hid crafty observation ; 



* Holy Fair is a common phrase 
land for a Sacramental i 



i the WestofScot- 



And secret hung, with poisoa'd <t<'«*, 

The dirk of Defamation : 
A mask that like the gorget show'd, 

Dye-varying on the pigeon ; 
And for a mantle large and broad, 

He wrapt him in Religion. 

Hypocrisy a-la-moctv. 



UPON a simmer Sunday morn, 

When Nature's face is fair, 
1 walked torth to view the corn, 

An' snuff the caller air, 
The rising sun owre Galston muirs, 

Wi' glorious light was glintin ; 
The hares were hirplin down the furs, 

The lav 'rocks they were chantin 

Fu' sweet that day 

II. 

As lightsomely I glowr'd abroad, 

To see a scene saegay, 
Three Hizzies, early at the road, 

Cam skelpin up the way ; 
Twa had manteeies o'dolefu' black, 

Bui ane wi' lyart lining ; 
The third, that gaed a wee a-back, 

Was in the fashion shining 

Fu' gay that day. 

III. 

The twa appear'd like sisters twin, 

In feature, form, an' claes ! 
Their visage, wither'd, lang, an' thin, 

An' sour as ony slaes : 
The third cam up, liap-step-an'-lowp , 

As light as ony lambie, 
An' wi' a curchie low did stoop, 

As soon as e're she saw me, 

Fu' kind that day. 

IV. 

Wi' bannet aff, quoth I, " Sweet la?9, 

I think ye seem to ken me ; 
I'm sure I've seen that bonnie face, 

But yet I canna name ye." 
Q,uo' she, an' laughin as she spak, 

An' taks me by the hands, 
" Ye, for my sake, hae, gi'en tne feck 

Of a' the ten commands 

A screed some dnv, 



" My name is Fun — your cronie aear, 

The nearer friend ye hae ; 
An' this is Superstition here, 

An' that's T {ipocrisy. 
I'm gaunto *""""* Holy Fair x 
To spend an hour in damn ; 



BURNS' POEMS. 



17 



Gin ye'll go there, yon runkl'd pair 
Wo will get famous laugliin 

At them this day." 

VI. 

Quetl I, " With a' my heart, I'll do't : 

I'll get my Sunday's sark on . 
An' meet yuu on the holy spot 

Faith, we'se hae fine remarkin 1" 
Then I gaed hame at crowdie-time 

An' soon I made rae read;- ; 
For roads were clad, frae side to side, 

Wi' monie a wear' body, 

In droves that day. 

vn. 

Here farmers gash, in ridin graith, 

Gaedhoddin by their cotters; 
There, swankies young, in uraw braid-claith, 

Are springin j're the gutters. 
The lasses, skelpin buretit, thrang, 

In silks an' scarlets glitter ; 
Wi' sweet-milk chee> :, in monie a whang, 

An'/arJs bak'd wi' b .. let- 

Fu' crump that day. 

VIII. 

When by the plate we set our nose, 

Weel heaped iipwi' ha'pence 
A greedy giuwr Bla k Bonnet throws, 

An' we maun draw our tippence. 
Then in we go to see the show, 

On ev'ry si le they're gathrin, 
Some carrying dales, some chairs an' stools. 

An' some are busy ble'.hrin 

.light loud that day. 

IX. 

Here stands a shed to fend the show'rs, 

An' screen our kintra Gentry, 
There, racer Jest, an twa-three wh-res, 

Are B.inkm at the entry. 
Here sits a raw of tittlin jades, 

\\T heaving breast and bare neck 
An' there a batch of wabsterlads, 

Blackguarding frae K ck 

For fun this day. 



Here some are thinkin on their sins, 

An' some upo' their claes ; 
Ane curses feet thftt fyl'd hia shins, 

Anithei- liglisah' pi aj - i 
f>n this hand sits a chosen swatch, 

Wi'acrew'd up grace proud faces ; 
On that a sel o' chaps at watch, 

Thr? ng w : okin on the lasses 

To chairs that day. 

XI. 

O happy it that man ao' blest I 
Nae wondet thai it pride him I 



Whase ain dear lass, that he likes best, 
Comes clinkin down beside him ! 

Wi' arm reposed on the chair back, 
He sweetly does compose him ! 

Which, by degrees, slips round her neck, 
All's loof upon her bosom 

Unken'd that day. 

XII. 

Now a' the congregation o'er, 

Is silent expectation ; 
For ****** speels the holy door, 

Wi' tidings o' d-mn-t— n. 
Should Hornie, as in ancient days, 

'Mang sons o' G — present him, 
The vera sigh o' *****'s face, 
To's ain het hame had sent him 

Wi' fright that day. 



XIII. 

Hear how he clears the points o' faith, 

Wi' ratlin an' wi' thumpint 
Now meekly calm, now wild in wrath, 

He's stampin an' he'sjumpin! 
His lengthen'd chin, his turn'd up snout, 

His eldritch squeel and gestures, 
Oh how they fire the heart devout, 

Like cantharidian plasters, 

On sic a day 1 

XIV. 

But hark ! the tent has chang'd its voice 5 

There's peace an' rest nae langer : 
For a' the real judges rise, 

They canna sit for anger. 
****** opens out his cauld harangues, 

On practice and on morals ; 
An' aff the godly pour in throngs, 

To g'ie tue jars an barrels 

A lift that day. 

XV. 

What signifies his barren shine 

Of moral pow'rs and reason ? 
His English style, an' gesture fice, 

Are a' clean out o' season. 
Like Socrates or Antonine, 

Or some auld pagan Heathen, 
The moral man he does define, 

But ne're a word o' faith in 

That's right that day. 

XVI. 

In guid time comes an antidote 

Against sic poison'd nostrum ; 
For *******, f 1 ae the water-fit, 

Ascends the holy rostrum : 
See, up he's got the word o' G — , 

An' meek an' mim has view'd it, 
While Common-Sense has ta'en the road. 

An' aff, an' up the Cowgate,* 

Fast, fast, that day. 
• A street so called, which faces the tent it 



IS 



BURNS' POEMS. 



XVII. 

Wee******, niest, the Guard relieves, 

An' Othodoxy raibles, 
Tho' in his heart he weel believes, 

An' thinks it auld wives' fable3 : 
But faith ! the birkie wants a Manse, 

So, cannily he hums them ; 
Altho' his carnal wit an' sense 

Like hafflins-ways o'ercomes hina 
At times that day. 

XVIII. 

Now butt an' ben, the Change-house fills, 

Wi' yill-caup Commentator! ; 
Here's crying out for bakes and gills, 

An' there the pint stowp clatters ; 
While thick an' thrang, an' loud an' lang, 

Wi' Logic an' wi' Scripture, 
They raise a din, that in the end, 

Is like to breed a rupture 

O wrath that day. 

XIX. 

Leeze me on Drink ! it gies us mair 

Then either School or College : 
It kindles wit, it wakens lair, 

It bangs us fou o' knowledge. 
Be'twiskygill, or penny wheep, 

Or ony stronger potion, 
It never fails en drinking deep, 

To kittle up our notion 

By night or day. 

XX. 

Thi lads an' lasses blythely bent 

To mind'baith saul an' body, 
Sit round the table weel content, 

An' steer about ihe toddy. 
On this ane's dress, an' that ane's leuk, 

They'i e making observations ; 
While some are cozie 1' the neuk, 

An' formin assignations, 

To meet some day. 

XXI. 

But now the L — d's a in trumpet touts", 

Till a' the hills arerairin, 
Au' echoes back return the shouts : 

Black ****** is na sparin, 
His pierceing words, like Highland swords, 

Divide the joints an' marrow ; 
His talk o' H-ll, where devils dwell, 

Our vera sauls dose harrow " 

Wi' fright that day. 

XXII. 

A vast,unbottom'd, boundless pit, 

Fill'd fou o' lowin brunstane, 
WhaBe ragiu flume, an' scorchit heat, 

Wad melt the hardest whum-stane I 

* Shakespeare's Hamlet. 



The half asleep start up wi' fea«, 

An' think they hear it roarin, 
When presently it does appear, 

'Twas but some neebor snorin 

Asleep that aay. 

XXIII. 

'Twad be owre lang a lale, to tell 

How mouie stories past, 
An' how they crowded to the yill 

When they were a' dismist ; 
How drink gaed round, in cogs an'caups, 

Amang the furms an' benches ; 
An' cheese an' bread frae women's laps, 

Was dealt about in lunches, 

An' daubs that day 

XXIV. 

In comes a gauciegash Guidwife, 

An' sits down by the live, 
Syne draws her kebbuck an' her knife, 

The lasses ihey are shyer. 
The Auld Guidmen about the grace, 

Frae side tu side they bother, 
Till some ant by his bonnet lays, 

An' gi'es them't like a tether, 

Fu' lang that da/ 

XXV. 

Waesucks 1 for him that gets naes lass, 

Or lasses that hae naething 1 
Sma 1 need lias lie to say a grace, 

Or melvie his braw claithing 1 
O wives, be mindiu', ance yoursel, 

How bennie lads ye wanted, 
An' dinna, for a kebbuck-heel, 

Let lasses be affronted 

On sic a day t 

XXVI. 

Now Clinkumbell, wi' rattlin tow, 

Begins to jovv an'croon ; 
Some swagger hame, the best they dov, 

Some wait the aftenoon. 
At slaps the billies halt a blink, 

Till lasses strip their shoon ; 
Wi' faith an' hope an' love an' drink, 

They're a' in famous tune, 

For crack that day 

XXVII. 

How mouie hearts this day converU 

O' sinners and o' iasses 1 
Their hearts o' stane, gin night are gane, 

As saft as ony flesh is. 
There's some are fou o' love divine ; 

There's some are fou o' brandy ; 
An' monie jobs that day begin, 

May end iu Houghmangandie 

Someither day. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



19 



DEATH AND DR. HORNBOOK. 



A TRUE STORY. 

SOME books are lies frae end to end, 
AND some great lies were never penn'd, 
Ev'n Ministers, they hae been kenn'd 

In holy rapture, 
4 rousing whid, at time to vend, 

And nail't wi' Scripture. 

But this that I am gaun to tell, 
Which lately on a night befel, 
la just as true's theDeil's in h-11 

Or Dublin city : 
That e'er he nearer comes oursel 

'S amuckle pity 

The Clachan yill had made me canty, 

I was na fou, but just and plenty ; 

I stacher'd whyles, but yet look tent ay 

To free the ditches ; 
An' hillocks, stanes, an' bushes kenn'd ay 

Frae ghaists an' witches. 

The rising moon began to glow'r 
The distant Cumnock hills out-owre : 
To count her horns, wi' a' my pow'r, 

I sent mysel ; 
But whether she had three or four, 

Icou'd natell. 

I was come round about the hill, 
And toddlin down on Willie's mill, 
Setting my staff wi'a' iry skill, 

To keep me sicker : 
Tho' leeward whyles, against my will, 
I took a bicker. 

I there wi' Something did forgather, 

That put me in eerie swither ; 

An awfu' sithe, out-owre ae showther, 

Clear-dangling, hang ; 
A three-tae'd leister outhe ither 

Lay, large an' lang. 

Its stature seem'd lang Scotch ells Uva, 
The queerest shape that e'er I saw, 
For fient a wane it had ava ! 

And then, its shanks, 
They were as thin, as sharp an' sma' 

As cheeks o' branks. 

" Guid-een, " quo' I ; " Friend ! hae ye been 

ma win, 
When ither folk are busy sawin ?' * 
It seem'd to mak a kind o' stan 

But naething spak ; 
At length, says I, " Friend, whare ye gaun, 
Will ye go back?"* 

It spakeiighthowe,— "My name is Death, 
But be na fley'd."— QLuoth I, " Guid faith, 
Ye 're may be come to stap my breath ; 
But tent me, billie : 

• Thi9 rencounter happened in seed-time, 1785. 



Iredyeweel, takcareo' skaith, 

See, there's a gully I" 

" Guidman," quo' he, " put up your whittle, 
I'm no design'd to try its mettle ; 
But if I did, 1 wad be kittle 

To be mislear'd, 
I wad na mind it, no, that spittle 

Out-owre my beard. 

" Weel, weel !" says I, "a bargain be't; 
Come, gies your hand, an' sae we're gree't; 
We'll ease our shanks an' takaseat, 

Come, gies your news 
This while* ye hae been monie a gate 

At monie a house." 

" Ay, ay !" quo' he, an' shook his head, 
" It's e'en a lang, lang time indeed 
Sin' I began to nick the thread, 

An' choke the breath 
Folk maun do something for their bread, 

An' sae maun Death. 

" Sax thousand years are near hand fled 

Sin' I was to the hutching bred, 

An' monie a scheme in vain's been laid, 

To stap or scar me : 
Till ane Hornoook's f ta'em up the trade, 

An' faith, he'll waur me 

" Ye ken Jock Hornbook i' the Clachan, 
DefimaK his king's hood in a splenchan ! 
He's grown sae well acquaint wi' Buchan \ 

An' ither chaps, 
That weans haud out their fingers laughin 

And pouk my hips. 

" See, here's a sithe, and there's a dart, 
They hae pierc'd mony a gallant heart ; 
But Doctor Hornbook, wi' his art, 

And cursed skill, 
Has made them baith not worth a f— t, 

Damn'd haet they'll kill. 

" 'Twas but yestreen, nae farther gaen, 

I tiirew a noble throw at ane ; 

Wi' less, I'm sure, I've hundreds slain ; 

But deil-ma-care, 
It just pley"d dirl on the bane, 

But did nae mair. 

" Hornbook, was by, wi' ready art, 
And had sae fortify 'd the part, 
That when I looked to my dart, 

It was sae blunt, 
Fient haet o't wad hae pierc'd the heart 
Of a kail-runt. 

* An epidemical fever was then raging in that 
country. 

t This gentleman, Dr. Hornbook, is professionally, 
a brother of the Sovereign Order of Ferula ; but, by 
intuition and inspiration, is at once an Apothecary 
Surgeon, and Physician. 

X Buchan's Domestic Medicine. 



20 



BURNS' POEMS. 



" I drew my sithe in sic a fury, 
I nearhand cowpit wi' my hurry 
But yet the bauld Apothecary 

Withstood the shock J 
I might as weel hae try'd a quarry 

O' hard whin rock. 



" Ev'n them he canna get attended, 
Alto' their face he ne'er had kend it, 

Just in a kail-blade, and send it, 

As soon he smells't, 
Baith their disease, and what will mend it 
At once he tells't. 

" And then a' doctors' saws and whittles, 
Of a' dimensions, shapes, an' mettles, 
A' kinds o' boxes, mugs, an' boliles, 

He's sure to hae J 
Their Latin names as fast he rattles 

As A B C. 

" Calces o' fossils, earth, and trees ; 
True Sal-marinum o' the seas ; 
The Farina of beans and pease, 

Be has't in plenty ; 
Aqua-fontis, what you please. 

He can content ye. 

" Forbye some new uncommon weapons, 
Urinus Spiritus of capons ; 
Or Mite-horn shavings, filings, scrapings, 
Dis'.ill'd^er se ; 
Sal-alkali o' Midge-tail-clippings, 

And moniemae." 

"Wae? me for Johnny Ged's Hole* now," 

Q.uo' I, "if that the news be true I 

His braw calf-ward whare gowans grew, 

Sae white and bonnie, 
Nae doubt they'll rive it wi' Ihe plew ; 

They'll ruin Johnie!" 

The creature grain'd an eldritch laugh, 
And says, " Ye need na yoke the pleugh, 
Kirkyards will soon be.till'd eneugh, 

Tak ye nae fear : 
They'll a' be trench'd wi' monie a sheugh 

In twa-three year. 

« Whare I kill'd a 
By loss o' blood ( 
This night I'm free to tak my aith, 

That Hornbook's skill 
Has clad a score i' their last elaith, 

By drap an' pill. 

u An honest Wabster to his trad. , 
Whase wife's twa nieves were scarce wee bred, 
Gat tippence-worth to mend her head, 
When it was sair ; 
The wife slade cannie to her bed, 

But ne'er spak mair. 



'The grave-digger. 



" A kintra Laird had ta'en the batti, 
Or some curmurring in his guts, 
His only son for Hornbook sets, 

An' pays him well. 
The lad, for twa guid gimmerpets, 

Was laird himsel. 

" A bonnie lass, ye kend her rfame, 

Some ill-brewn drink had hov'rlher wamef 

She trusts hersel, to hide the shame, 

In Hornbook's care j 
Horn sent her aff to her lang hame, 

To hide it there. 

" That's just a swatch o' Hornbook's way ; 
Thus goes he on from day to day, 
Thus does he poison, kill an' slay, 

Ad's A-eel paid for't ; 
Yet stops me o' my lawfu' prey, 

Wi' his d-mn'd dirt : 

" But, hark ! I'll tell you of a plot, 
Tho' dinna ye be speaking o't ; 
I'll nail the self-conceited Scot, 

As dead's aherrin: 
Kicst time we meet, I'll wad a groat, 

He gets his fairin I" 

But just as he began to tell, 

The auld kirk-hammer strak the bell 

Some wee short hour ayont the twal, 

-Winch rais'd us baith: 
I took the way that pleas'd mysel 

And sae did Death. 



THE BRIGS OF AYR, 



INSCRIBED TO J. B« 



'.ESGt.AYR. 



THE simple Bard, rough at the rustic plough, 
Learning his tuneful trade from every bough ; 

Lhem How i brush, 
.iaiiinj; t!.r .-;, iti the green thorn buaii; 

The soaring lark, the perching red-breast shrill, 
Ordeep-ton'd, plovers, stay, wild-whistling o'er the 

hill ; 
Shall he, nurst in the peasant's lowly shed, 
Tohardy In lependence bravely bredj 
By early poverty to hardship steel'd, 
Ami train'd to at ms i , -n rn Misfortune's fie«a, 
Shall he be guilty of their hireling crimes, 
The servile mercenary Swiss of rhymes i 
Or labour bard the panegyric close, 
With all the venal soul of dedicating f'roser 
No ! though his artless strains he rudely singa. 
And throws his hand uncouthly o'er the strings, 
He glows with all the spirit of the Bard, 
Fame, honest fame, his great, his dear reward. 
Still, if some I atron's gen'rous care he trace, 
Skill'd in the secret, to bestow with grace ; 
When B" * " * * " * befriends his huraoie name, 



BURNS' POEMS. 



21 



And hauds the rustic stranger up to fame, 
With heart-felt throes his grateful bosom swells, 
The godlike bliss, to give, alone excels. 



'T was When the stacks get on their winter-hap, 
And tback and rape secure the toil won-crap ; 
Potatoe-bings are snugged up frae skailh 
Of coining Winter's biting, frosty breath ; 
The bees, rejoicing o'er their summer toils, 
Unnumber'd buds an' flowers' delicious spoils, 
Seal'd up with frugal care in massive waxenpiles, 
Are doom'd by man, that tyrant o'er the weak, 
The death o' devils smoor'd wi' brimstone reek : 
The thundering guns are heard on every side, 
The wounded coveys, reeling, scatter wide ; 
Thefeather'd field-mates, bound by Nature's tie. 
Sires, mothers, children, in one carnage lie : 
(What warm, poetic heart, but inly bleeds, 
And execrates man's savage, ruthless deeds !) 
Nae mair the flower in field or meadow springs ; 
Nae mair the grove with airy concert rings, 
Except perhaps the Robin's whistling eke, 
Proud o' the height o' some bit half-lang tree : 
The hoary morns precede the sunny days, 
Mild, calm, serene, wide spreads the noontide 

blaze, 
While thick the gossamour waves wanton in the rays 
'Twas in that season, when a simple bard, 
Unknown and poor, simplicity's reward ; 
Ae night, within the ancient brugh of Ayr 
By whim inspir'd, or haply prest wi' care ; 
He left his bed, and took his wayward route, 
And down by Simpson's* wheel 'd the left about : 
(Whether impell'dby all-directing Fate, 
To witness what I after shall narrate ; 
Or whether, rapt in meditation high. 
He wander'd out he knew not where nor why :) 
The drowsey Dungeon-clock) had number'd two, 
And Wallace Towerf had sworn the fact was true. 
The tide-swoln Firth with sullen sounding roar, 
Through the still night dash'd hoarse along the shore 
AUalse was hush'd as Nature's closed e'e ; 
The silent moon shone high o'er tower and tree : 
The chilly frost, beneath the silver beam, 
Crept, gently crusting, o'er tlie glittering stream. — 

When, lo ! on either hand the list'ning Bard, 
The clanging sugh of whistling wings is heard ; 
Two dusky forms dart thro' the midnight air, 
Swift as the Gos$ drives on the wheeling hare ; 
Aneon th' Auld Brig his airy shape uprears, 
Theither flutters o'er the risingpiers : 
Our warlock Rhymer instantly descry 'd 
The Sprites that owre the Brigs of Ayr preside. 
(That Bards are second-sighted is nae joke, 
And ken the lingo of the sp'ritual fo'k ; 
Fays, Spunkies, Kelp : es, a', they can explain them,) 
Andev'n the very deils they brawly ken them.) 
Auld Brig appear'd of ancient 1 ictish race, 
The vera wrinkles Gothic in his face : 
He seem'd as he wi' Time had warstl'd lang, 

*A noted tavern a*, the Auld Brig end. 

t The two steeples. 

I'The gos-hawk, or falcon. 



Yet teughlydoure, he bade an unco bang. 

New Brig was buskit in a braw new coat, 

That he, at Lon'on, frae ane Adams, got ; 

In's hand five taper staves as smooth's a bead, 

Wi' virls and whirlygigums at the head. 

The Goth was stalking round with anxious search, 

Spying the time-worn flaws in ev'ry arch ; 

It chanc'd his new-come neebor took his e'e, 

And e'en a vex'd and angry heart had he ! 

Wi' thieveless sneer to see hia modish mien, 

He, down the water, gies him this guideen :— 

AULD BRIG. 

I doubt na^rien'^e'll think ye're nae sheep Bhank, 

Ance ye were streekit o'er frae bank to bank, 

But gin ye be a brig as auld as me, 

Tho' faith that day, I doubt, ye'il never see 

There'll be, if that date come, I'll wad aboddle, 

Some fewer whigmeleeries in your noddle. 

NEW BRIG. 

Auld Vandal, ye but show your little mense, 
Just much about it wi' your scanty sense ; 
Will your poor, narrow foot-path of a street, 
Where twa wheel-barrows tremble when they meet, 
Your ruin'd, formless bulk o'stane an' lime, 
Compare wi' bonnie Brigs o'modern time? 
There's men o'taste would tak the Ducat-stream," 
Tho' they should cast the very sark an swim, 
Ere they would grate their feelings wi' the view 
Of sic an ugly Gothic hulk as you. 

AULD BRIG. 

Conceited gowk ! puff'd up wi' windy pride ! 
This mouie a year I've stood the flood an' tide : 
And tho' wi' crazy eild I'm sair forfairn, 
I'll be a Brig, when ye're a shapeless cairn ! 
As yet ye little ken about the matter, 
But twa-tnree winters will inform you better, 
When heavy, dark, continued, a'-day rains, 
Wi' deepening deluges o'erflow the plains ; 
When from the hills where springs the brawling Coil 
Or stately Lugar's mossy fountains boil, 
Or where the Greenock winds his moreland course, 
Or haunted Garpal\ draws his feeble source, 
Arous'd by blust'ring winds an' spotting thowes, 
In mony a torrent down his sna-brob rowes ; 
While crashing ice, borne on the roaring speat, 
Sweeps dams, an' mills, an brigs, a' to the gate ; 
And from Glenbuck,% down to the Rot ton-key ,* 
Auld Ayr is just onelengthn'd, tumbling sea ; 
Then down ye'U hurl, deil nor ye never rise ! 
And dash the gumlie jaups up to the pouring skies : 
A lesson sadly teaching, to your cost 
That Architecture's noble art is lost! 

* A noted ford, just above the Auld Brig, 
t The banks of Garpal Water is one of the few 
places in the West of Scotland, where those fancy- 
scaring beings, known by the name of Ghaists, still 
continue pertinaciously to inhabit. 

% The source of the rivar Ayr. 

§ A small landing place above the large key. 



£2 



BURNS' POEMS. 



NEW BRIG. 

Fine Architecture, trowth, I needs must say't o't ! 
The L — d be lhank't that we've tint the gate o't I 
Gaunt, ghastly, ghaist-alluring edifices, 
Hanging with threat 'ning jut , like precipices ; 
O'er arching, mouldy, gloom-inspiring coves 
Supporting root's fantastic, stony groves : 
Windows and doors, in nameless sculpture drest, 
With order, symmetry, or taste unblest ; 
Forms like some bedlam statuary's dream, 
The craz'd creations of misguided whim ; 
Forms might be worshipp'd on the bended knee, 
And still the second dread command be free, 
Their likeness is not .found on earth, in air, or sea. 
Mansions that would disgrace the building taste 
Of any mansion, reptile, bird, or beast ; 
Fit only for a doited Monkish race, 
Or frosty maids forsworn the dear embrace, 
Orcuifs of latter times, wha held the notion 
That sullen gloom was sterling true devotion ; 
Fancies that our guid Brugh denies protection, 
And soon may they expire, unblest with resurrection ! 

AULD BRIG. 

ye, my dear-remcmber'd, ancient yealings, 
Were ye but here to share my wounded feelings I 
Ye worthy Proveses, an' mony a Bailie, 
Wha in, 'he paths o' righteousness did today; 
Ye dainty Deacon', and ye douce Conveeners, 
To whom our moderns are but causey-cleaners; 
Ye godly Councils wha hae blest this town ; 
Ye godly Brethren of the sacred gown, 
Wha meekly gie your hurdi.es to the smiters ; 
And (what would now be strange) ye godly Writers ; 
A' ye douce folk I've borne aboon the broo, 
Were ye but here, what would ye say or do? 
How would your spirits groan in deep vexation, 
To see each melancholy alteration ; 
And, agonizing, curse the time and place 
When ye begat the base, degen'rate race ! 
Nae langer Rev'rend Men, their country's glory, 
In plain braid Scots holp forth a plain braid story ! 
Nae h.nger thrifty Citizens, an' douce, 
Meet owre a pint, or in the Cuuncil-house ; 
Bu; staumrel, corky-headed, graceless Gentry, 
The herryment and ruin of the country ; 
Men, three-parts made by Tailors and by Barbers, 
Wha waste your weli-haiu'd gear on d— d new Brigs 
and Harbours! 

NEW BRIG. 

Now baud you there 1 for faith ys've said enough, 
And niuckle mair than ye can male to through. 
As for your priesthood, I shall say but little, 
Corbies and Clergy are a shot right kiltie : 
But under favour o' your langer beard, 
Abuse o' Magistrates might well be spar'd : 
To liken them to your auld-warld squad, 
I must needs say, comparisons are odd, 



In Ayr, Wag-wits na mair can hae a handle 

To mouth " a Citizen," a term o' scandal : 

Nae mair the Council waddles down the street, 

In all the pomp of ignorant conceit ; 

Men wha grew wise priggin owre hopes an' 

Or gather'd lib'ral views in Bonds and Seisins. 

If haply Knowledge, on a random tramp, 

Had shor'd them with a glimmer of his lamp, 

And would to Common-sense, for once betray'd them. 

Plain, dull Stupidity stept kindly in to aid them. 



What farther clishmaclaver might been said, 
What bloody wars, if Sprites had blood to shed, 
No man can tell ; but all before their sight, 
A fairy train appear'd in order bright : 
Adowa the glittering stream they featly dane'd ; 
Bright to the moon t dresses glanc'd • 

They footed o'er the watry glass so neat, 
The infant ice scarce bent beneath their feet: 
While arts of Minstrelsy among them rung, 
And soul-ennobling Ban!:-, heroic ditties sung. 
O had M'Lauchlem,* thairra-inspiring Sage, 
Been there to hear this heavenly band engage, 
When thro' his dear StraVuspeys trey bore with High- 
land rage, 
Or when they struck old Scotia's melting airs, 
The lover's raptur'd joys or bleeding cares ; 
How would his Highland lug been nobler fir'd, 
And ev'u his matchless hand with finer touch iuspir'd) 
No guess could tell what instrument appear'd, 
But all the soul of Music's self was hes rd ; 
Harmonious concert rung in every part. 
While simple melody pour'd moving on the heart. 

The Genius of the Stream in front appears, 
A venerable Chii , ears ; 

His hoar;' b lilies crown'd, 

1 J is manly leg with garter tangle bound. 
Next came li.e loveliest pair in all the ring, 

ad in hand with Spring; 
Then, crown'd with flow'ry hay, came rural Joy, 
And .Summer, with his fervid-beaming eye : 
All-cheering 1 leuty, with her flowing horn, 
Led yellow Autumn wreath' d with nodding corn ; 
Then Winter's time-bleach'd locks did hoary show, 

tlity with cloudless brow. 
Next follow . i ii his martial stride, 

From where the Feal wild woody coverts hide ; 
Benevolence, with mild, benignant air, 
A female form, came from the tow'rs of Stair]: 
Learning and Worth in equal measures trode 
From simple Catrine, theii long-lov'd abode : 
Last, white rob 'd Peace, crown'd with a hazel wraitU, 
To rustic Agriculture did bequeath 
The broken iron instruments of death ; 
At sight of whom our Sprites forgat their k\nill.<£ 
wrath. 



* A well known performer of Scottish music on U»c 
violin. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



23 



rriJK ORDINATION. 



For sense they intle owe to Frugal Heaven— 
To please the Mob tney nide the little given. 



I. 

KILMARNOCK Wahsters fidge an' claw 

An' pour yinii crceshie nations ; 
An' ye wlia leather lax an 1 draw, 

Of a' denomiationa, 
Swift to tlie Laig/t Kirk, ane an' a' 

An' there tak up your stations ; 
Then all to B-sij — ;>■ m a raw, 

An' pour divine libations 

For joy this day. 



ir. 



Curst Common Pense that imp o' h-11, 

Cam in \vi' Maggie Lauder ;* 
But O ******* aft made her yell, 

An'R***** sairmisca'd her; 
This day M' «««*»*« takes the flail, 

And he's the Iroy will bland her 1 
He'll ciap a sfiangan 0:1 her tail, 

An - ' set the bairns to daub her 

Wi 1 dirt this day. 

III. 

Male haste an' turn king David owre, 

An' lik wi' h»ly clangor ; 
0' double verse come gie us four, 

An' skirl up the 
This day the k'u k ki( ks up a stoure, 

Nae mair the knaves shall wranghe, 
For Heresy is in lier pow'r, 

An' gloriously shall whang her 

Wi' pith this day. 

IV. 

Come, let a proper text be read, 

An' touch it iiff wi' vig 
How gnu. ugh at his Dad, 

Which made Canaan a niger ; 
Or Phinca^X drove the murdering blade, 

Wi' wh re abhoi i uig rigour ; 
Or Zipporah.,% the scauldin jade, 

Was like a bluidy tiger 

1' th' inn that day. 



There, try hi3 mettle on the creed, 

And bind him down wi' caution, 



• Alluding to a scoffing ballad which was made nn the 
admission ol the late Reverend and worthy Mr. L. to 
theLaighKiik. 

tGenesiSjChap ix.22. 1 Numbers, ch. xxv, ver.8. 
§ Exodus, ch. iv. ver. 85. 



That Stipend is a carnal weed 

Hetaks but for the fashion ; 
An' gie him o'er the flocks, to feed, 

And punish each transgression : 
Especial, ranis that cross the breed, 

Gie them sufficient threshin, 

Spare them nae daj. 

VI. 

Now auld JSV.namock cock thy tail, 

And toss thy horns fu' canty, 
Nae mair thou 'It rowte out-owre the dale, 

Because thy pasture's scanty ; 
For lapfu's large o' gospel kail 

Shall lilt thy crib in plenty, 
Aii' runij o' grace the pick an' wale, 

No gi'eu by \vj.y o' dainty, 

But ilka day. 

VII. 

Nae mair by Babel's streams we'll weep, 

To think uppn our Zion; 
And tiing our liddles up to sleep, 

Like baby-clouts a-dryin : 
Come, screw i he pegs wi' tunefu' cheep, 

And o'er the thairms be tryiu ; 
Oh, rare ! to sec our elbucks wheep, 

An' a' like ian.b-tails thin 

Fu' last this day! 

VIII. 

Lang Patronage., wV rod o' aim, 

liasshor'd the Kirk's tindcin, . 
As lately F-nw-ck sair forlairn, 

Has proven to its ruin : 
Ouri atron, honest man ! Glencaim, 

He saw mischief was brewio ; 
And like a godly elect bairn, 

He's wal'd us out a n-ue ane, 

And sound this day. 

IX 

Now R* * * * * * * harangue nae mair, 

But stuck your gal, for ever: 
Ortry the wicked town rf A** 

For there they'll think you clever 
Or, nae reflection on your lear, 

Ye may commence a Shaver 
Or to the N-lh-rt-n repair, 

And turn a Carpet-weaver 

Aff hand this day. 



M * * * * * and you were just a match, 
We never had sic twa drones : 

Auld Hornie did the Laigk Kirk watch, 
Just like a winkin baudrons ; 

And ay' he catch'd the tither wretch 
To fry them in his caudrons ; 

But now his honour naaun detach, 



24 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Wi' a* his cimstone squadrons, 

Fast, fast this day. 

XI. 

See, Bee auld Orthodoxy's faes, 

She's swingein thro' the city ; 
Hark, how the nine-tail'd cat she plays I 

I vow it's unco pretty : 
There, Learning, with his Greekish face, 

Grunts out some Latin ditty ; 
And Common Sense is gaun, she says, 

To mak to Jamie Beattie 

Her 'plaint this day. 

XII., 

But there's Mortality himsel, 

Embracing all opinions ; 
Hear, how he gies the titheryell, 

Between his twa companions ; 
See, how she peels the skin an' fell, 

As ane were peelin onions I 
Now there — they're packed affto hell, 

Andbanish'd our dominions, 

Henceforth this day. 

XIII. 

O happy day ! rejoice, rejoice 1 
Come bouse about the porter 1 
Morality's demure decoy3 

Shall here nae mail- find quarter : 
M' *******, R***** are the Doys, 

That Heresy can torture ; 
They'll gie her on a rape and hoyse 
And cow her measure shorter 

By th' head some day. 

XIV. 

Come bring the tither mutchkin in, 

And here's, for a .conclusion, 
To every New Light" mother's son, 

From this time forth, Confusion : 
If mair they deave us with their din, 

OrParsonage intrusion, 
We'll light a spunk, and, ev'ry skin, 

We'll rin them afl'in fusion 

Like oil, some day. 



THE CALF. 



TO THE REV. MR.; 

OnhisText, Malachi, ch. iv. ver. 2. " And they 
■bail go forth, and grow up, like calves of the stall." 

RIGHT , Sir ! your text I'll prove it true, 
Though Heretics may laugh ; 

• New Light is a .ant phrase in the West of Scotland, 
br those religious opinions which Dr. Taylor of Nor- 
wich has defended so slienuously. 



For instance ; there's yoursel just now, 
God knows, an unco Calf J 

And should some Patron be so kind, 

As bless you wi' a kirk, 
I doubt na, Sir, but then we'll find, 

Ye're still as great aSlirk. 

But, if the Lover's raptur'd hour 

Shall ever be your lot, 
Forbid it, ev'ry heavenly Power, 

You e'er should be a Stot! 

Tho', when some kind connubial Dear 

Your but-and-ben adorns, 
The like has been that you may wear 

A noble head of horns. 

And in your lug most reverend James, 
To hear you roar and rowte, 

Few men o' sense will doubt your claim* 
To rank amang the nowte. 

And when ye're number'dwi' the dead, 

Below a grassy hillock, 
Wi' justice they may mark your head— 

"Here lies a famous Bullock!" 



ADDRESS TO THE DEIL. 



O Prince ! Chief of many throned Powirra, 
That led th' embattled Seraphim to war. 

MILTON 



O THOU ! whatever title suit thee, 
Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Cloctie, 
Wha in yon cavern grim an' sootie, 

Closed under hatches 
Spairges about the brunstane cootie, 

To scaud poor wretches 

Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee, 
An' let poor damned bodies be ; 
I'msuresma' pleasure it can gie, 

E'en to a.deil, 
To skelp an' scaud poor dogs like me, 

An' hear us squeel ! 

Great is thy pow'r, an' great thy fame ; 
Far kend and noted is thy name ; 
An' tho' yonlowinheugh's thy hame, 

Thou travels far ; 
An' faith 1 thou's neither lag nor lame, 

Norblatenoracaur 

Whyles, ranging like a roarin lion, 
For prey, a' holes an' corners tryin ; 
Whyles on the strong- wing'd tempest flyin, 
Tirling the kirks ; 



BURNS' POEMS. 



25 



Whyles, in the human bosom pryin, 

Unseen thou lurks. 



I've heard my reverend Grannie say, 
In lanely giens ye like to stray ; 
Or where auld ruin'd castles, gray, 

Nod to th« moon, 
Ye fright the nightly wand'rer'sway, 

Wi' eldritch croon. 

When twilight did my Grannie summon 
To say her prayers, dounce, honest woman I 
Aftyontthe dyke she's heard you bummin, 

Wi' eerie drone ; 
Or, rustlin, thro' the boortreescomin. 

Wi' heavy groan. 

Ae dreary, windy, winter night, 
The stars shot down wi' sklentin light, 
Wi' you, mysel, I gat a fright, 

% Ayont the lough ; 

Ye, like a rash-bush, stood in sight, 

Wi' waving sugh. 

The cudgel in my nieve did shake, 
Each bristl'd hair stood like a stake, 
When wi' an eldritch, stour, quaick — quaick- 

Amangthe springs, 
Awa ye squatter'd, like a drake, 

On whistling wings. 

Let warlocks grim, an' wither'd hags, 
Tell how wi' you on ragweed nags 
They skim the muirs, an' dizzy craigs, 

Wi' wicked speed ; 
And in kirk yards renew their leagues, 

Owre howkit dead. 

Thence kintra wives, wi' toil an' pain, 
May plunge an' plunge the kirn in vain ; 
For, oh 1 the yellow treasure's ta'en 

By witchiiig skill ; 
An' dawtit, twal-pint Haickie's gaen 

As yell's the Bill. 

Thence mystic knots mak great abuse, 
On young Guidman, fond, keen, an' crouse ; 
When the best wark-lume i' the house, 

By cantrip wit, 
Is instant made no worse a louse, 

Just at the bit. 

When thowes dissolve the snawy hoord, 
An' float the jinglin icy-boord 
Then Water-kelpies haunt the foord, 

By your direction, 
An' nighted Travelers are allur'd 

To their destruction. 

An' aft your moss- traversing Spunkies 
D«coy the wight that late an' drunk is : 



The bleezin, curst, mischievous monkeys 
Delude his eyes, 

Till in some miry slough he sunk is, 

Ne'er mair to rise. 

When Mason's mystic word an' grip 
In storms an' tempests raise you up, 
Some cock or cat your rage maun stop, 

Or strange to telll 
The youngest Bi other ye wad whip 

Aff straught to hell « 

Lang syne, in Eden's bonnie yard, 
When youthfu' lovers first were pair'd, 
An' all the soul of love they shar'd 

The raptur'd hour, 
Sweet on the fragrant, flow'ry swaird 

In shady bow'r : 

Then you, ye auld, snic-drawingdog 1 
Ye came to Paradise incog, 
An' play'd on man a cursed brogue, 

Black be your fa' 1 
An' gied the infant warld a shog, 

'Maist ruin'd a* 

D'ye mind that day, when in a bizz 
Wi' reckit duds, an' restit gizz, 
Ye did present your smoutie phiz, 

'Mang better fo'k, 
An sklented on the man of Uzz 

Your spitefu' joke 

An' how ye gat him i' your thrall, 
An' brak him out o' house an' hall, 
While scabs an' blotches did him gall 

Wi' bitter claw, 
An' lows'd his ill-tongu'd, wicked Scawl, 

Was warst ava ? 

But a' your doings to rehearse, 
Your wily snares an' fetchtin fierce, 
Sin' that day Michael* did you pierce, 

Down to his time, 
Wad ding a' Lallan tongue, or Erse, 

In prose or rhyme. 

An' now, auld Cloots, I ken ye're ttinkin 
A certain Bardie's rantiu, drinkin, 
Some luckless hour will send him liukin, 

To your black pit : 
But, faith ! he'll turn a corner jinkin, 

An' cheat you yet. 

But, fare you weel. auld Nickie-ben! 
O wad ye tak a thought an' men' I 
Ye aiblins might — I dinna ken — 

Still hae a staks— 
I'm wae to think upo' yon den, 

Ev'u for youn&kel 

* Vide Milton, Bock YL 



26 



BURNS' POEMS. 



DEATH AND DYING WORDS 

OP 

POOR MAILIE, 
THE AUTHOR'S ONLY PET YOWE. 

AN UNCO MOURNFU' TALE 

As Mailie, an' her Jambs thegither 
Were ae day nibbling on ibe tether, 
Upon her cloot she ooost a hitch, 
An' owre she warsl'd in the ditch' 
There, groaning, dying, she did lie, 
When Hug/ioc" he camdoytiu by. 

Wi'glowin een, an' lifted hand's, 
Poor Hughoc like a statue stairs ; 
He saw her days, wgre near-hand ended, 
But, w;ies my lie art ! he culd na mend it I 
He gaped wide, but neaihmg spak 1 
At length Poor Mailie silence brak. 

" O thou, whase lamentable face 
Appears to mourn my woefu' easel 
My dyin^ words attentive hear, 
An' bear them to mjr master dear. 

" Tell him, if e'er again he keep, 
Aemuclde gear as buy a sheep, 
O, bid him never tie them mair 
Wi' wicked strings o' hemp or hair ! 
But ca' them out to park or hill, 
An' let them wander at their will ; 
So may his flock increase, an' grow 
To scores o' lambs, an' packs o' woo' : 

" Tell him, he was a master kin', 
An' ay was guid to me and mine ; 
An' now my dying charge 1 gie him, 
My helpless lambs 1 trust them wi' him. 

•' O' bid him, save their harmless lives, 
Frae clogs, an' tods, an' butchers' knives 1 
But gie them guid cow-milk their fill, 
Till they be fit to fend themsel : 
An' tent them duly, e'en an' morn, 
Wi' teats o' hay an' rips o' com. 

" An' may they never learn the gaets 
Of ither vile wanrestfu' pets! 
To slink thro' slaps, an' reave an' steal, 
At stacks o' pease, or stocks o' kail. 
So may they, like their great Forbears, 
For monie a year come thro' the sheers: 
So wives will gie them bits o' bread, 
An' bairns greet for them when they're dead. 

•A neebor herd-callau. 



" My poor toop-ktmb, my son on' hefe, 
1 •, bid him breed him up wi, rare I 
An', if he live to be a beast, 
To pil -scu.it- bavins in his breast ! 
Ad 1 warn hiin, what I winna name, 
To stay content wi' yowes at hame ; 
An, no to rin an' wear his cloots, 
Like ither menseless, -faceless brute*. 

" An,niest myyowie, silly thing, 
• hee frae a tether string ! 
O, may thou ne'er forgather up 
Wi' ony blastft, moorland toop-; 
;. i aj keep mind to moop an' mell, 
Wi' sheep o' credit like thysel 1 

" And now, my bairns, wi' my last breath, 
I lea'e mylilessin wi' you baith : 
An when you think upo' yourMither, 
Mind to be kin' to aneanither. 

" Now, honest Ilualtoc, dinna fail, 
To tell my master a' my tale ; 
An' bid him burn this cursed lether, 
An', for t'ly pains, ihuu'se t:et tny 1 lather." 

This said, poor MaWe turn'd her head, 
An' clos'd her e'en amang the dead. 



POOR MAILIE'S KLEGY. 

LAMENT in rhyme, lament in prose, 
Wi' saut tears trickling down >-i ar nose; 
Our bardie's fate is at a i I 

1'usi a' remead ; 
The last sad capestan ofhis woesj 

Poor Mailie'sde*d\ 

It's uo the loss o' warl's 
That could sae bitter draw the tear 
Or mak our baidie, powie, wear 

The mourning weed ; 
He's lost a friend and neebor dear, 

In Mailiedead. 

Thro a' the town she trotted by him ; 
A laug hall' mile she Ci uld descry l . i ; 
Wi : kindly bleat, when she did spv him, 

She ran wi' speeJ ; 
A friend mair faUhfu' ne'er cam nigh him, 

'J' ban Mailie dead. 

I wat she was a sheep o : sense, 
An' could behave hersel wi' mense: 
I'll say't, she never brak a fence, 

Thro' thievish gree«i, 
Our baedie, lanely, keeps the spence 

Sin' Maihe's dead. 

Or, if he wanders up the howe, 
Her living image in hery 
Comes bleating to him, owre the Knowe, 

For bitso' bread; 
An down the briny pearls rowe 

For Mo Hie dead 



BURNS' POEMS. 



27 



She was raegeto* moorland tips, 
\W tawlcil ket, an dairy hips ; 
For her forbears were brought, in ships 

Prheyontthft Tweed 
A bonnier jleek ne'er cross'd the clips 

Than Mailie dead. 

Wae worth the man wha first, did shape 
That vile, wanchancic thing — a t ipe ! 
It raaks guid fellows giru an' gape, 

W"i' chokin dread ; 
Au' Robin's bonnet wave wi' crape, 
For Mailie dead. 

O, a' ye bards on bonnie Boon ; 
At\' wha on Ayr your chanters tune t 
Come, join iliemelaiicholimis croon 

O' Robin's reed ! 
His heart wiil never get aboon I 

His Mailie dead. 



Friendship 1 mysterious cement of the soul 1 
Sweet'oer of life, and solder of society 1 

I owe the much. 

BLAIR. 



Tha 

For 



DEAR S***«, thesleest, paukie thief, 
That e'er attempted stealth or rief, 
Ye surely hae some warlock breef 

Ovvre human hearts ; 
ne'er a bosom yet was brief 

Against your arts. 
For n> I swear by sun an' moon, 
Ande' star that blinks aboon, 
Ye've cost me twenty pair o' shoou 

Just gaun to see you ; 
And ev'ry itherpair that's done, 

Mair ta'en I'm wi' you. 

That auld, capricious carlin, Nature, 
To mak amends for scrimpit stature, 
She's turn'dyou aff, a human creature 
On her first plan, 
And in her freaks, on ev'ry feature. 

She's wrote, the Man. 

Just now Iv'e ta'en the fit o' rhyme, 
My barmie noddle'* working prime 
My fancy yerkit up sublime 

Wi' hasty summon t 
Hae ye a leisure-moment's time 

To hear what's comiu ? 

Some rhyme, a neebor's name to lash ; 
Some rhyme, (vain thought !') for needfu' cash 
Some rhyme to court the kintra clash, 
i An' raise a din ; 



For me, an aim I never fash ; 

I rhyme for fun. 

The star that rules my luckless lot, 
Has fated me the russet coat, 
A11' damn'd my fortune to tl-e groat ; 
But in requit, 
Has bless'd me wi'a random bhot 

O' kintra wit. 

This while my notion's ta'en a sklent, 
To try my fate in gnid black prent ! 
But still the mair I'm that way bent, 

Something cries, •' Hoo 
I red you, honest men, tak tent ! 

Ye '11 shaw your folly. 

" There's ither poets, much your betters, 
Far seen in Gree£, deep meno' letters, 
Hae thought they had ens'ur'd their debtors, 

A' future ages ; 
Now moths deform in shapeless tetters, 

Their unknown pages." 

Then fareweel hopes o' laurel-boughs, 
To garland my poetic brows ! 
Henceforth I'll rove where busy ploughs 

Are whittling thracg, 
An' teach the lanely heights an' howes 

My rustic sang. 

I'll wander on, with tentless heed 
How never-halting moments speed, 
Till fate shall snap the brittle thread, 

Then, all unknown, 
I'll lay me with the inglorious dead, 

Forgot and gone I 

But why o' death begin a tale? 
Just now we're living sound and dale, 
Then top and maintop crowd the sail. 

Heave care o'er side ! 
And large, before enjoymeat's gale, 

Let's tak the tide. 

This life, sae far's I understand, 
Is a' enchau'nted, f.tiry land, 
Where pleasure is the magic wand, 

That wielded right, 
Maks hours, like minutes, had in hand, 
Dance by fu' light. 

The magic-wand then let us wield ; 
For ance that five-au'-forty's speel'd, 
See crazy, w.eary, joyless eild, 

Wi' wrinkl'd face, 
Comes hostin, hirpliu owre the field, 

Wi' creepin pace. 

When ance life's day draws near the gloamin, 
Then farewell vacant careless roamin ; 
An' fareweel, cheerfu' tankards loan. in, 
An' social noise ; 
An' fareweel, dear, deluding woman, 

The joy of joys I 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Life! how pleasant in thy morning, 
ng Fancy's rays the hills adorning 1 



O LL. . 

Young Fancy's rays tnc uuu auuimugi 
Cold-pausing Caution's lesson scorning. 

We frisk away, 
Like school-boys' at th' expected warning, 

TojoyanJ play. 

We wander there, we wander here, 
We eye the rose upon the brier, 
Unmindful that the thorn is near, 

Among the leaves ; 
And though the puny wound appear, 

Short while it grieves. 

Some, lucky, find a flow'ry spot, 
For which they never toil'd nor swat ; 
They drink the sweet, and eat the fat, 

But care or pain ; 
And, haply, eye the barren hut 

With high disdain. 

With steady aim, some fortune chase ; 
Keen Hope does every sinew brace ; 
Thro' fan-, thro' foul, they urge the race, 

And seize the prey : 
Then cannie, in some cozie place, 

They close the day. 

And others, like your humble servan', 
Poor wights 1 nae rules nor roads observin ; 
To right or left, eternal swervin, 

They zig-zag on ; 
Till crust with age, obscure an' starvin, 

They aften groan. 

Alasl what bitter toil an' straining— 
But truce with peevish, poor complaining ! 
Is fortune's fickle Luna waning? 

E'en let her gang 1 
Beneath what light she has remaining, 

Let's sing our sang. 

My pen I here fling to the door, 
Andkneel, "Ye Powers !' ; and warm implore, 
" Tho' I should wander terra o'er, 

In all her climes, 
Grant me but this, I ask no more, 

An rowth o' rhymes. 

" Gie dreeping roasts to kintra lairds, 
Till icicles hing frae their beards, 
Gie fine braw claes to fine life-guards, 

And maids of honour ; 
And yill an' whisky gie to cairds, 

Until they sconner. 

" A title, Dempster merits it ; 
A garter gie to Wi lie Pitt ; 
Gie wealth to some be ledger'd cit, 

In cent, per cent. 
But gie ma real, sterling wit, 

And I'm content. 

" While ye nre >.]f r.s'd to keep me hale, 
I'Usit down i 'a -my scanty meal^ 



Be't water-brose, or muslin-kail, 

Wi'cheerfu' face, 

As lang's the muses dinna fail 

To say the grace.* 

An anxious e'e I never throws 
Behint my lug, or by my nose ; 
I jouk beneath misfortune's blows 

As weel's I may ; 
Sworn foe to sorrow, care and prose, 

I rhyme away. 

O ye douce folk, that live by rule, 
Grave, tideless-blooded, cairn and cool, 
Compar'd wi' you — O fool ! fool ! fool 

How much unlike. I 
Your hearts are just a standing pool, 

Your lives, a dyke. 

Hae hair-brain'd, sentimental trace* 
In your unletter'd, nameless faces ! 
In arioso trills and graces 

Ye never stray, 
But, gravissimo, solemn basses 

Ye hum away. 

Ye are sae grave, nae doubt ye're wise I 
Nae ferly tho' ye do despise 
The hairum-Bcairum, ram-stam boys, 

The rattlin squad : 
I see you upward cast your eyes — 

—Ye ken the road.— 

Whilst I — but I shall haud me there— 
Wi' you I'll scarce gang ony where— 
Then, Jamie, I shall say nae mair, 

But quat my sang. 
Content wi' you to mak a pair, 

Where'er I gang 



A DREAM. 



Thoughts, words, and deeds, the statute blamee 

reason ; 
But surely dreams were ne'er indicted treason. 



[On reading, in the public papers, the Laureat's Ode, 
with the other parade of June 4, 1786, the author 
was uo sooner dropped asleep, than he imagined him- 
self to the birth-day levee ; and in his dreaming fan- 
cy made the following Address.'} 



I. 



GUID-MORNING to your Majesty! 

May heav'n augment your blisses, 
On every new birth-day ye see, 

A humble poet wishes 1 
My hardship here, at your levee, 

Qn sic a day as this is, 



BURNS' POEMS. 



y lure an uncouth sight to fee, 
Among the birth-day dresses 

Sae fine this day. 

II. 

I see ye're complimented thrang, 

By nionie a lord and lady ; 
" God save the king!" 's a cuckoo sang 

Thai's unco easy said ay ; 
The poets, too, a venal gang, 

Wi' rhymes weel-turn'd and ready, . 
VVadgaryou trow ye ne'er do wr'aug, 

But ay unerring steady, 

On sic a day. 



< ". m - 

For me ! before a monarch's face, 

Ev'n there I winna flatter ; 
For neither pension, post, nor place, 

Am I your humble debtor : 
So, nae reflection on your grace, 

Your kingship to bespa 
There's monie wave been o' the race, 

And aiblius ane been better 

Than you this day. 

IV. 

'Tia very true my sov'reign king, 

My skill may weelbe doubted : 
But facts are duels that winna ding, 

An' downa be disputed : 
Your royal nest, beneath your wing, 

Is e'en right reft an' clouted, 
And now the iliii d part of the string, 

An' less, will gane about it 

Than did ae day. 



Far be't frae me that I aspire 

To biame your legislation, 
Or say, ye wisdom want, or fire, 

To rule this mighty nation ! 
But, faith 1 I muckle doubt, my Sire, 

Ye've trusted ministration . 
To chaps, wha, in a barn or byre, 

Wad better fill'd their station 

Than courts yon day. 



VI. 

And now ye've gien auld Britain peace, 

Her broken shins to plaster 
Vour sair taxat'.ondces her fleece, 

Till she has scarce a tester ; 
For me, thank God my life's a lease, 

Nae bargain wearing faster, 
Or, faith 1 I fear, that wi' the geese, 

1 shortly boost to pasture 

I' tne craft some day. 



VII. 

I'm no mistrusting Willie Pitt, 

When taxes he enlarges, 
(An' Witt'89. true guid fallow's get, 

A name not envy spairges,) 
That he intends to pay your debt, 

An' lessen a' your charges J 
But, G-d-sake ! let nae saving-Jit 

Abridge your bounie barges 

An' boats this day. 

VIII. 

Adieu, my Liege! may freedom geek 

Beneath your high protection ; 
An' may ye rax corruption's neck, 

And gielier for dissection ! 
But since I'm lure, I'll no neglect, 

In loyal, true affection, 
To pay your Queen, with due respect, 

Aly fealty an' subjection 

This great birth-day. 

IX. 

Hail, Majesty Most Excellent ! 

White nobles strive to pleaseye, 
Will ye accept acumpLmeht 

A simple poet gies ye ? 
Thae boiuiie bail ntime, Heav'nhas lent, 
. Still higher may they heeze ye 
In bliss, till fate someday is sent, 

For ever to release ye 

Frae care that day. 



For you, young potentate o' W , 

I tell your Highness fairly, 
Down pleasure's stream, wi' swelling sails, 

I'm tauid ye'ie driving rarely ; 
But'some day yc may gnaw your nails, 

An' curse your folly sairly, 
That e'er ye brak Diana's pale's, 

Or, rattl'd dice wi' Charlie, 

By night or day. 

XI. 
Yet aft a ragged cowte's been known 

To make a noble aiver ; 
So, ye may doucely fill a throne, 

For a' their clish ma-claver: 
There, him" at Agincourt wha Shoes, 

Few belter were or braver ; 
And yet, wi' funny, queer SirJohn,\ 

He was an unco shaver 

For monie a day. 



For you, right rev'rend O 8 

Nane sets the lawn-sleeve sweeter, 

Although a ribban at your lug 
Wad been a dress completer : 

•King Henry V. 
tSir John Falstarf : vide Shakspeara. 



so 



BURNS' POEMS. 



As ye disown yon paughty Jog 

That bears the keys of Peter, 
Then, swithi an' get a wife to hag, 

Or, trouth ! ye'll stain the mitre 

Some luckless day. 

xm. 

Young, royal Tarry Breeks, I learn, 

Ye've lately come athwart her ; 
A glorious galley,* ste' l an' stern, 

Well rigg'd for Venus' barter ; 
But first hang out, that she'll discern 

Your hymenial charter, 
Then heave aboard your grapple aim, 

An', large upo' her quarter, 

Come full that day. 

XIV. 

I'e, lasUy, bonnie blossoms a', 

Ye royal lasses dainty 
Heav'n mak you guid as weel as braw, 

An' gie you lads a-plenty : 
Be' sneer nae British boys awa', 

For kings are unco scant ay ; 
An' German gentles are but sma', 

They're better just than wm t 
On onie day. 

XV. 

God bless you a' 1 consider now, 

Ye're unco mnckledautet ; 
But, ere the course o' life be thro', 

It may be bitter sautet : 
An' I hs s seen their coggie fou, 

Tha yet haetarrow't at it ; 
But or the day was done, I trow, 

The laggen they hae clautet 

Fu' clean that da^ 



THE VISION. 



DUAN FIRST.t 

THE sun had clos'd the winter day, 
The curlers quat their roaring play, 
An' hunger' J maukin ta'en her way 

To kail-yards green, 
While faithless snaws ilk step betray 

Wliare she has been. 

The thresher's weary fingin-tree 
The lee-lang day had tired me ; 
And when the day had clos'd his e'e, 
Far i' the west, 

"Alluding t^the newspaper account of a certain 
royal saibr's amour. 

' ^Duan, a term of Qssian's for the different divisions 
of a digressive poem. See his Cath-Loda, vol. ii. of 
M'Pherson's translation. 



Ben i' the spend, right pensivelie, 

I gaed to rest. 

There, ianely,uy the ingle-cheek, 
I sat and ey'd the spewing reek, 
That fill'd, wi' hoast-provoking smeek, 

The auld clay biggin 5 
An' heard the restless rattons squeak 

About the riggin. 

All in this mottie, misty clime, 
I backward mus'd on wasted time, 
How I had spent my youthfu' prime, 

An' done nae-thing, 
But stringin blethers up in rhyme, 

For fools to sing. 

Had I to guid advice butharkit, 
I might, by this, hae led a market, 
Or strutted in a bank an' clarkit 

My cash account ; 
While here, half-mad, hall fed, half-sarkit, 
Is a' th' amount. 

I started, mutt'ring, blockhead ! coof ! 
And heav'd on high my waukit loof, 
To swear by a' yon starry roof, 

Orsomerashaith, 
That I, henceforth, would be rhyme-proof 

Till my last breath— 

When click ! the string the snick did draw ; 
And jee ! tiie door gaed to the wa' ; 
An' by my inglelowe I saw, 

Now bleezin bright, 
A tight, outlandish Hizzie, braw, 

Come full in sight. 

Ye need na doubt, I held my whisht ; 
The infant aith, half form'd, was crushtj 
I glowr'd as eerie's I'd been dusht 

In some wild glen ; 
When sweet, like modest worth, she blusht, 
And stepped ben. 

Green, slender, leaf-clad holly-boughs 
Were twisted, gracefu', round her brows ; 
T took her lor some Scottish Muse, 

By that same token ; 
An' come to stop those reckless vows, 

Wou'd soon been broken. 

A " hair brain'd, sentimental trace," 
Was strongly marked in her face ; 
V wildly witty, rustic grace 

Shone full upon her ; 
Her eye, ev'n turn'd on empty space, 

Beam'd keen with honour. 

Down flow'd her robe, a tartan sheen ; 
Till half a leg was scrimply seen ; 
And such a leg ! my bonnie Jean 

Could only peer it ; 
Sae straught, sae taper, tight, and clean, 

Nane else came near l». 



BURNS' POEMS. 



31 



Her mantle large, of greenish hue, 
My gazing wonder chiefly drew ; 
Deep lights and shades, bold-mingling threw, 

A lustre grand ; 
Andaeem'd, to ray astonish'd view, 

A well known land. 
Here, rivers in the sea were lost ; 
There, mountains to the skies were tost : 
Here, tumbling billows mark'd the coast, 

Willi surging foam ; 
There, distant shone Art's lofty boast, 

The lordly dome. 

Here, Doon pour'd down his far-fetch'd floods ; 
There, well-fed Irwine stately thuds : 
A old hermit Ayr staw thro' his woods, 

On to the shore ; 
And many a lesser Urrent scuds, 

With seeming roar. 

Low, in a sandy valley spread, 
An ancient borough rear'd her head j 
Still, as in Scottish story read, 

She boasts a race, 
To ev'ry nobler virtue bred, 

And polish'd grace. 

By stately tow'r or palace fair 
Or ruins pendent in the air, 
Bold stems of heroes, here and there, 

I could discern ; 
Some seem'd to musj, some seem'd to dare, 

With feature stern. 

My heart did glowing transport feel, 
To see a race* heroic wheel, 
And brandish round the deep-dy 'd steel 

In sturdy blows ; 
While back-recoiling seem'd to reel 

Their stubborn foes. 

His country's saviour,! mark him well 1 
Bold Richardtori'sX heroic swell ! 
The chief of Sark% who glorious fell, 

In high command ; 
A.id he whom ruthless fates expel 

Hi3 native land. 

There, where a scepter'd Pictish shade,1T 
Stalk'd round his ashes lowly laid, 
I mark'd a martial race, portray'd 

In colours strong ; 
Bold, soldier-featur'd, undismay'd 

They strode along. 



The Wallaces. 



t William Wallace. 



X Adam Wallace, of Ricliardton, cousin to the im 
.nortal preserver of Scottish independence. 

§ Wallace, Laird of Craigte, who was second in com. 
mand, under Douglas earl of Ormond, at the fomous 
battle on the banks of Sark, fought aimo 1448. That 
glorious victory was principally owing to the judicious 
conduct, and intrepid valour of the gallant Laird of 
Craigie, who died of his wounds after the action. 

11 Coilus, king of the Picls, from whom the district of 
Kyle is said to take its name, lies buried, as tradition 
says, near the family-seat of the Montgomeries of 
Coil's field, where his burial-place is still shown. 



Thro' many a wild, romantic grove,* 
Near many a hermit-fancy'd cove, 
(Pit haunts for friendship or for love) 

In musing mood, 
An aged judge, I saw him rove, 

Dispensing good. 

With deep-struck reverential awef 
The learned sire and son I saw, 
To Nature's God and Nature's law 

They gave their lore, 
This, all its source and end to draw, 

That, to adore. 

Brydone's brave wardj I well could spy, 
Beneath old Scotia's smiling eye j 
Who call'd on fame, low standing by, 

To hand him on, 
Where many a patriot name on high, 

And hero shone. 

DUAN SECOND. 

WITH musing-deep, astonish'd stare, 
I view'd the heavenly-seeming fair ; 
A whispering throb did witness bear, 

Of kindred sweet, 
When with an elder sister's air 

She did me greet, 

" All hail ! my own inspired bard I 
In me thy native muse regard ! 
Nor longer mourn thy fate is hard, 

Thus poorly low I 
I come to give thee such reward 

As we bestow. 

" Know, the great genius of this land 
Has mac/ a light aerial band, 
Who, all beneath his high command, 

Harmoniously, 
As arts or armB they understand, 

Their labours ply. 

" They Scotia's race amangthem share j 
Some fire the scaler on to dare ; 
Some rouse thf patriot up to bare 

Corruption's heart : 
Some teach the bard, a darling care, 

The tuneful art. 

" 'Mong swelling floods of reeking gore, 
They, ardent, kindling spirits pour; 
Or, 'mid the vernal senate's roar, 

They, sightless, stand, 
To mend the honest patriot-lore, 

And grace the hand. 

"And when the bard, or hoary sage« 
Charm or instruct the future age, 

* Barskimming, the seat of the Lord Justice-Clerk. 

t Catrine, the seat of the late doctor and present 
professor Stewart. 



J Colonel Fullarton. 



32 



BURNS' POEMS. 



They bind the wild poetic rage 

In erergy, 
Or point the inconclusive page 

Full on the eye. 

" Hence Fullarton, the brave and young; 
Hence Dempster's zeal-inspired tongue; 
Hence sweet harmonious Beatlie suns; 

i:is ' Minstrel lays;' 
Cr tore, with noble ardour stung, 

The sceptic's bays. 

" To lower orders are assign'd 
The humbler ranks of human-kind, 
The rustic Bard, the lab'ring Hind 

The Anisan ', 
All chuse, as various they're incun'd, 

The various man. 

" When yellow waves the heavy grain, 
The threatening storm some strongly rein, 
Some teach to meliontate the plain 

Willi liUage-skill ; 
And some instruct the shepherd-train^ 

' Blythe o'er the hill. 

"Some hint the lover's harmless wile ; 
Some grace the maiden's"a'rtless smile; 
Some sooth the laborer's v. 

. For hunfele gains, 

And make his cottage-sc< n ( i uife 

llis carts and pains. 

" Some, bounded to a district-space, 
Explore at large man's infant race, 
To mark the embryotio trace 

Of rustic Bard; 
And careful nole each op'hing 

A guide and guard. 

"Of these am I—Coila my name ; 
And this district as mine I claim, 
Where once the Campbells, chiefs of fame, 

Held ruling pow'r : 
I mark'd thy embryo tuneful flame, 

Thy natal hour. 

" With future hope, T oft would gaze 
Fond, on thy little early ways, 
Thy rudely caroll'd chiming phrase, 

■in uncouth rhymet, 
Fir'd at the simple, artless lays 

Of other times. 

" I saw thee seek the sotfhilfcig shore, 
Delighted with the dashing roar ; 
Or when the north his Beecy store 

Drove thro' the sky, 
I saw grim nature's visa-, boar 

Struck thy young eye. 

" Or, when the deepgreen-mantl'd earth 
Warm cherish 'd ev'ry ftow'ret's birth, 
And joy and music pouring forth 

In ev'ry grove, 



I saw thee eye the gen'ral mirth 

With boundless , 



" When ripen'd fields, and azure skies, 
Call'd forth the reaper's rustling noise, 
I saw thee leave their evening joys, 

And lonely stalk, 
To vent thy bosom's swelling rise 

In pensive walk. 

" When youthful love, warm-blushing, strong, 
Keen-shivering shot thy nerves along, 
Those accents, guateful to thy tongue, 

Th' adored Name 
I taught thee how to pour in song, 

To sooth thy flame. 

" I saw thy pulse's maddening play, 
Wild send thee pleasure's devious way, 
Misled by fancy's meteor ray, 

By passion driven ; 
But yet the light that led astray 

Was light from heave 

" J taught thy manners-painting strains, 
The ln\ es, the ways of simple swains, 
Tillnow, o'er all my wide domains 

Thy fame extends. 
And some, the pride of Coito's plains, 

Become my friends. 

" Thou can:-', not learn, nor can I show, 
To paint with 'Atomspn's landscape-glow ; 
Ur wake the bosom-melting throe, 

With Shenstone's art, 
Or pour, with Gray, the moving flow 

Warm on the heart. 

" Yet all beneath th' unrivall'd rose, 
lows ; 
Tho' large the forest's monarch throws 

rmy shade, 
, .vthoin grow*, 

Aduv.n the glade. 

" Then never murmur nor repine ; 
sphere to shine : 
Potosi's mine, 

rrard, ' 
Cangivea hhsso'eri latching thine, 

A rustic Bard. 

" To give my counsel all in one 

Thy tuneful Came" still careful fan; 

. the Dignity of Man, 

With soul erect ; 
Au.I trust, the Universal . 

Will all protect. 

this"— she solemn said, 

ri und my head : 
, and berries red, 

Did rustling play ; 
And, like a passing thought, 

In light away. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



33 



ADDRESS OF THE UNCO GUID, 

OR, THE 

RIGIDLY RIGHTEOUS. 



My son, these maxims make a rule, 

And lump them ay thegither ; 
The Rigid Righteous is a fool, 

The Rigid Wise anither : 
The cleanest corn that e'er was dight 

May hae some pyles o' chaff in ; 
So ne'er a fellow-creatur* slight 

For random fits o' dalhn. 

Solomon. — Eccles. ch. vii. ver. 16. 



1. 



O YE wha are sae guid, yourael, 

Sae pious and sae holy, 
Ye've nought to do but mark and tell 

Your neebor's faults and folly I 
Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill, 

Supply'd wi' store o' water, 
The heapet happer's edding still, 

And still the clap plays clatter. 

11. 

Hear me, ye venerable core, 

As counsel for poor mortals, 
That frequent pass douce Wisdom's door 

For glaikit Folly's portals ; 
I, for their thoughtless, careless sakes, 

Would here propone defences, 
Their dousie tricks, their black mistakes, 

Their failings and mischances. 

III. 

Ye see your state wi' theirs eompar'd, 

And shudder at the niffer, 
But cast a moment's fair regard, 

What maks the mighty differ ; 
Discount what scant occasion gave, 

That purity ye pride in, 
And (what's aft mair than a' the lave) 

Your better art o* hiding. 

IV. 

Think, when your castigated pulse 

Gies now and then a wallop, 
Whatragings must his veins convulse, 

That still eternal gallop : 
Wi' wind and tide fair i' your tail, 

Right on ye scud your sea-"va_/ ; 
But in the teeth o' baith to sail, 

It maks an unco leeway. 



See social life and glee sit down, 

All joyous and unthinking, 
Till, quite transmogrify'd, they're eriirn 

Debauchery and drinking : 
O, would they stay to calculate 

Th' eternal consequences ; 
Or your more dreaded hell to taste, 

D-mnation of expenses I 

VI. 

Ye high, exalted, virtuous daraes, 

Ty'dupin godly laces, 
Before ye gie poor frailty names, 

Suppose a change o' cases ; 
Adearlov'd lad, convenience sung, 

A treacherous inclination — 
But, let me wisper i' your lug, 

Ye're aiblins nae temptation. 



Then gently scan your brother man, 

Still gentler 6ister woman ; 
Tho' they may gang a kennin wrang; 

To step aside is human : 
One point must still be greatly dark, 

The moving wky they do it : 
And just as lamely can ye mark, 

How far perhaps they rue it. 

VIII. 

Who made the heart, 'tis He alone 

Decidedly can try us, 
He knows each chord— its various tone, 

Each spring, its various bias: 
Then at the balance let's be mute, 

We never can adjust it ; 
What's done we partly may compute, 

But know not what's resisted. 



TAM SAMSON'S* ELEGY. 



An honest man's the noblest work of God. 



Has auld ft********* seentheDeil? 
Or great M'*******! thrawn his heel I 
Or R** * * * * * again grown weel,} 

To preach an' read. 

♦When this worthy old sportsman went out last 
muir-fowl season, he supposed it was to be, in Ossian's 
phrase, " the last of his fields;" and expressed an 
ardent wish to die and be buried in the muirs. On 
this hint the author composed bis elegy and epitaph. 

f A certain preacher, a great favourite with the mil- 
lion. Vide the Ordination, stauzall. 

1 Another preacher, an equal favourite with the few, 
who was at that time ailing. For him, see also thtl 
Ordination, stanza IX . 

B2 



34 



BURNS' POEMS. 



'Na, waur than a 1" cries ilka chiel, 

Tarn Samson's dead ! 



K* ******** langmay grunt an' grane 
An' sigh, an' sab, an' greet her lane, 

An' deed her bairns, man, wife 1 , an' wean, 
In mourning weed ; 
To death, she's dearly paid the kane, 

Tarn Samson's dead 1 

The brethren of the mystic level 
May hing their head in woelu' bevel, 
While by their nose the tears wdl revel, 
Like ony bead ; 
Death's gien the lodge an unco devel ; 

Tarn Samson's dead 1 

When winter muffles up his cloak, ' 
And binds the miie like a rock ; 
When to the loughs the carters flock, 

Wi' gleesome speed, 
Wha. will they station at the r >ck ? 

Tain Samson's dead I 

He was the kingo' a' the core, 
To guard, or draw, or wick a bore, 
Or up the rink like Jehu roar 

In lime of need ; 
But now he lags on death's hop-score, 

Tarn Samson's dead I 

Now safe the stately sawmont sail, 
And trouts bedropp'd vvi' crimson hail, 
And eels weel kenn'd for simple tail, 

Ami geds i'or greed, 
Since dark in daa.th' 1 sjish en el we wail 

Tain Samson dead I 

Rejoice, ye birring paitvjekj a' ; 
Ye coolie moorcocks, crousely craw ; 
Ye maukins, cock your fud In' braw, 

Wilhou'ten dread ; 
Your mortal faei?now awa', 

Tarn Samson's dead ; 

That woefu' morn be ever monrn'd, 
Saw him in shnmiu graith adqrn.'d,, 
While pointers round impatient burn'd, 

uoplea lr,.ed ; 
But, och ! hegasd and ne'er return 'd 

Tarn Samson's dead ! 

In vain auld age his body batters ; 
In vain the gout his ancles 
In vain the burns came down like waters, 

An acre ui aid ! 
Now ev'ry auld wile, gretiin, i latiei s, 

Samson's dead'. 

Owremany a weary hag he Limpit, 
An' ay the tither sh 

Till coward death behiud In in jumpit, 

W'i' deadly feide ; 

Nowhe proclaims, w i' i o trumpet,' 

• unson's dead ! 



When at his heart he felt the dagger, 
lie reel'd his wonted butiie-swagger, 
But yet he drew the mortal trigger 

Wi' weel aim'd heed; 
" L — d, fivel" he cry'dan' owre did stagger; 

Tain Samson's dead 1 

Ilk hoary hunter mourn'd a brither ; 
Ilk sportsman youth bemoan 'd a father ; 
Yon auld gray stane, am'Sng tlie heather, 
•Mai ks put his head, 

Whare Burn-: has wrote, in rhyming blether, 
Tarn Samson's dead I 

There low he lies, in lasting rest ; 

Somespitefu mi rnest, 

To hatch an 'breed: 

'Alas ! nae mail- he'll them molest I 

Tarn Samson's dead ! 

Wh( n August winds the heather wave, 
And sportsmen w ander by > on grave, 
Three volleys let \i\< mem' 

O' pouther an' lead, 
Till Echo answer frae her rave, 

Tam Samson's dead I 

. Heav'n real his'sanl, whare'er he be! 

e mae than me ; 
He had iwa faults, or may be, three, 

Vet what remead ?' 
Ae social, honest man want we : 

Tarn Samson's dead I 



THE EPITAPH. 

TAM SAMSON'S weel-Worn clay here lies, 

• Ye.caif ins 7ealots, spare him 1 
If honest worth in heaven rise 

Ye'U mem! or ye win near him. 

PilR CONTRA. 

Go, Fame, an' canter like a filly 

■■'■ks o' Killie,* 
• .Tellev'rj Social, honest billie 

To cease his grievin, 

! liy '!i ;: : h's 2le° gullie, 
Tain Samson's livin. 



HALLOWEEN, f' 



The following Poem will, by many readers, be well 

i dte of those whoare 

miners and traditions of the 

counti';, cast, notes are added, to 

;> phrase tlid country-folks sometimes use 

hen witches, devils, and oth- 
iii ■■ Jl ;,i i oad on their bane- 
1.1 errands; particularlv those aerial people 
, are said on that nighl,to hold agrand an- 
niversary. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



35 



give some account of the principal charms and spells 
of that niglu , so big with prophecy to the peasantry in 
the west ,>l Sco'hud. The passion of prying intol'n 
turity makes a striking pat t of the history of human 
nature in its rude state, in all ages and nations ; and 
:t may .be some entertainment to a philosophic rfiiml, 
if any such should honour the author with a 
to see the remains of it, among the more unenlighten- 
ed in our own. 



Yes ! let the rich deride, the proud disdain, 
The simple pleasures of the lowly train ; 
To me more dear, congenial to 'my heart, 
One native charm, than all I 

GOLDSMITH. 



I. 



UPON that night, when fairies light, 

On Cassi/is Darrmans* dunce, 
Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze, 

On sprightly coursers prance ; 
Or for Colean the route is la'en, 

Beneath the moon 
There, up the const to stray an' rove 

Amang the rocks and streams 

To sport that night 



Amang the hdnnie winding hanks, 

Where Doon rins, wimpling clear, 
Where Bruce} ance rul'tl the martial ranks, 

An' shook his Carrie k spear, 
Some merry, friendly, countra folks, 

Together did convene, 
Toburn the nits, an' pou their stock, 

An' haud tlieir Halloween 

Fu' blythe that night. 



in. 

the lasses feat, an' cleanly neat, 

Mair braw than when they're fine ; 
Their faces blythe, fu' sweetly kythe, 

Hearts leal, an' warm an' kin' : 
The lads sae trig, wi' wooer-ban's, 

Weel knotted on their garten, 
Sonic unco Mate, an' some wi' gabs, 

Gar lasses' hearts gang startin 

Whiles fast at ; 



• Certain little, romantic, rocky, green hills, in the 
.eighbour hood of the ancient seat of the Earls of Cas- 
■Uis. 

tA noted cavern nearColean-house, called The Cove 
Colean ; winch, as Cassilis Downans, is famed in 
tountry story for being a favourite haunt of fairies. 

}The famous family of that name, the ancestors of 
Robert, the great deliverer of his country, were Earls 
tf Carrick. 



IV. 



Then first and foremost, thro' the kail, 

Their stocks* maun a' be sought ance ; 
They steek their een' an' graip an' wale, 

For muckle anes an' straught anes. 
Poor hav'rel Will fell aff the drift, 

An' wander'd thro' the bow-kail, 
An' pow't for want o' ne'.ter shift, 

A runt was like a sow-tail, 

Sae bow't that night 



Then, straught or crooked, yirtl or nans, 

They roar and cry a' throu'lher; 
The vera wee things, todlin, rin 

Wi' stocks out-owre their sboutheis ; 
An' gif the custoc'g sweet or sour, 

Wi' joctelegs they taste them, 
Sync coziely, aboon the door, 

Wi' cannie care they place them 

To lie that night. 

VI. 

The lasses staw frae 'mang them a' 

To pou their stalks o' corn;\ 
But Rab slips out, an' jinks about, 

Beliint the muckle thorn ; 
He grippet Nelly hard an' fast ; 

Loud skirl'd a' the lasses ; 
But her lap-pickle maist was lost, 

When kutliii in the faust-housej 

Wi' him thai night. 

VII. 

The auldgnidwife's weel horded nits§ 
Are round an' round divided, 



* The first ceremony of Halloween is, pulling each a 
stock, or plant of kail. They must go out, hand in 
hand, with eyes shut and pull' the lirst'ihey meet with : 
Its bring bis or little, straight or crooked, is prophetic 
ol'the size and snape of the grand object of all their 
spells— the husband orwite. If any yird, or earth, stick 
to the root, that is tocher, or foi tune ; and the taste of 
that is, the heart of the stem, is indicative of 
the natural ten) per a ml disposition. Lastly, the stems, 
or, to give them their ordinary appellation, the runts, 
are placd somewhere above the head of the door ; and 
the christian names of the people whom chance brings 
into the house, are, accotding to the priority of placing 
the runts, the names in question. 

t They go to the barn-yard and pall each, at three sev- 
eral times, a stalk of oats. If the third stalk wants the 
top-pickle, that is, the grain at the topoi the stalk, the 
party in guestion will come to the marriage-bed any 
thing but a maid. 

I When the corn is in a doubtful state, by being too 
green, or wet, the stack-builder, by means of old timber 
& c ., makes a large apartment in his stack, with an open- 
ing in the side which is fairest exposed to the wind : 
this he calls a.fause-house. 

§ Burning the nuts is a famous charm. They name 
the lad and lass to each particular nut, as they lay them 
in the fire, and accordingly as they burn quietly togeth- 
er, or start from beside one another, the course aud i«- 
eue of the courtship will be. 



36 



BURNS' POEMS. 



An' monie lads' and lasses' fates, 

Are there that night deckled : 
Some kindle, couthie, side by side 

An' burn thegither trimly ; 
Some start awa wi' saucie pride, 

And jump out-owre the chimlie 

Fu' high that night. 

VIII. 

Jean slips in twa, wi' tentie e'e ; 

Wha 'twas she wadna tell ; 
But this is Jock, an' this is me, 

She says in to hersel ; 
He bleez'd owre her, an' she owre him, 

As they wad never mair part ; 
Till fuff ! he started up the lum, 

And Jean had e'en a sair heart 

To see't that night. 

IX. 

Poor Willie, wi' his bow-kail runt , 
Was brunt wi' primsie Mallie ; 
An' Mallie, nae doubt, took the drunt, 

To be compar'd to Willie ; 
Mall's nit lap out wi' pridefu' fling, 
An' her ain fit it burnt it ; 
tYhile Willie lap, and swore by jing, 
'Twas just the way he wanted 

To be that night. 



Nell had the fause-house in her min', 

She pits hersel an' Rob in ; 
In loving blseze they sweetly join, 

Ti. white in ase they're sobbin : 
Nell's heart was dancin at the view, 

She whisper'd Rob to leuk for't: 
Rob, stowlins, prie'd herbonnie mou, . 

Pu' cozie in the neuk for't, 

Unseen that night. 

XI, 

But Merran satbehint their backs, 

Her thoughts on Andrew Bell ; 
She lea'es them gashin at their craks, 

And slips out by hersel : 
She thro' the yard the nearest taks, 

An' to the kiln she goes then, 
An' darklins grapit for the bauks, 

And in the blue-clue' throws then, 

Right fear't that night. 

XII 

An' ay she win't, an' ay she swat, 
I wat she made nae jaukin J 

* Whoever would, with success, try this spell, must 
strictly observe these directions : Steal out, all alone, 
to the kiln, and, darkling, throw into the pot a clue of 
blue yarn ; wind it in a new clue off the old one ; and, 
towards the latter end, something will hold the thread ; 
demand wha hands J i. e. who holds ? an answer will 
be returned from the kiln pot, by naming the Chris- 
tian and surname of your future spouse. 



Till something held within the pat, 

Guid L — d 1 but she was quakin 1 
But whether 'twas the Deil hiinsel, 

Or whether 'twas a bauken, 
Or whether it was Andrew Bell, 

She did na wait on talkin 

To spier that night 

XIII. 

Wee Jenny to her Grannie says, 

" Will ye go wi' me, grannie ? 
I'll eat the apple" at the glass, 

I gat frae uncle Johnie :" 
She fuff't her pipe wi' sick a lunt, 

In wrath she was sae vap'rin, 
She notic't na, an azle brunt 

Her braw new worset apron 

Outtbro' that night 

XIV. 

" Ye little skelpie-limmer's face I 

How daur you try sic sportin, 
A3 seek the foul Thief ony place, 

For him to spae your fortune : 
Nae doubt but ye may get a sight ! 

Great cause ye hae to fear it ; 
For monie a ane has gotten a fright, 

An liv'd an' di'd deleeret 

On sic a night. 

XV. 

" Ae hairst afore the Sherra-moor, 

I mind't as weel' yestreen, 
I was a gilpey then, I'm sure 

I was nae past fyfteen : 
The simmer had been cauld an' wat, 

An' stuff was unco green ; 
An' ay a rantin kirn we gat, 

An' just on Halloween 

It fell that night. 

XVI. 

" Our stibble-rig was Rab M'Graen, 

A clever, sturdy fellow ; 
He's sin gat Eppie Sim wl' wean , 

That liv'd in Achmacjilla : 
He gat hemp-seed,^ I mind it weel, 

An he made unco light o't ; 

* Talce a candle, and go alone to a looking glaw 
eat an apple before it, and some traditions ssv, yon 
should comb your hair, all the time ; 'hi uoeofycur 
conjugal companion, to be, will be seen m the glass, as 
if peeping over your shoulder. 

t Steal out unperceived, and sow a handful of hemp 
seed ; harrowing it with any thing you can conveni- 
ently draw after you. Repeat now and then, "Hemp 
seed 1 6aw thee, hemp seed I saw thee ; and him (or 
her) that is to be my true love, come after me and povi 
thee." Look over your left shoulder, ami you will see 
the appearance of the person invoked, in the attitude 
of pulling hemp. Some traditions say, "come after 
me and shaw thee," that is, show thyself: iv which 
case it simply appears. Others omit the harrowiag, 
and say, " come after me, and harrow tbee." 



BURNS' POEMS. 



37 



But monie a day was by himsel, 
H« was sae sairly frighted 

That vera night." 

XVII. 

Then op gat fechtin Jamie Fleck, 

An' he swoor by his conscience, 
That he could saw hemp-seed a peck ; 

For it was a' but nonsense ; 
The auld guidman raught down the pock, 

An' out a handful' gied him ; 
Syne bad him slip fra 'mang the folk 

Sometime when nae ane see'd him, 

An' try't that night. 

XVIII. 

He marches thro' amang the stacks, 

Tho' he was something sturtin ; 
The graip he for a harrow taks, 

An' haurls at his curpin : 
Aii' ev'ry now an' then, he says, 

"Hemp-seed 1 saw thee, 
An' her that is to be my lass, 

Come after me, and draw thee, 

As fast this night." 

XIX. 

He whistl'd up Lord Lenox' march, 

To keep his courage cheerie ; 
Altho' his hair began to arch, 

He was see fley'd an' eerie : 
Till presently he hears a squeak, 

An' then a grane an' gruntle ; 
He by his shouther gae a keek, 

An tumbl'd wi' a wintle 

Out-owre that night. 

XX. 

He roar'd a horrid murder-shout, 

In dreadfu' desperation ! 
An' young an' auld came rinnin out, 

To hear the sad narration : 
He swoor 'twas hilchin Jean M'Craw, 

Or cruchie Merran Humphie, 
Till stop ! she trotted thro' them a' ; 

An' wha was it but Grumphie 

Asteer that night » 

XXI. 

Meg fain wad to the barn gaen 
To win three wechls o' naelhing ;* 

' This charm must likewise be performed unperceiv- 
ed, and alone. You go to the barn, and open both 
doors, taking them off the hinses, if possible ; for there 
is danger that the being, about to appear, may shut the 
doors, and do you some mischief. Then take that in- 
t'.rument used in winnowing the corn, which, in our 
country dialect, we cail a wecht ; and go through a.l 
the attitudes of letting down corn against the wind. 
Repeat it three times ; and the third time an appari- 
tion will pass through the barn, in at the windy door, 
and out at the other, having both the figure in question, 
and the appearance or retinue, marking the employ- 
meut or station in life. 



But for to meet the deil her lane, 

She pat but little faith in : 
She gies the herd a pickle nits, 

An' twa red cheekit apples, 
To watch, while for the 6am she seti, 

In hopes to see Tarn Kipples 

That vera night. 

XXII. 

She turns the key wi' cannie thraw, 

An owre the threshold ventures ; 
But first on Sawnie gies a ca' 

Syne bauldly in she enters ; 
A rat ton rattled up the wa', 

An' she cry'd L — d preserve her 
An' ran thro' midden-hole an' a', 

An' pray'd wi' zeal an' fervour, 

Fu' fast that night. 



XXIII. 

They hoy't out Will, wi' sair advice : 

They hecht him some fine braw ane ; 
It chanc'd the stack he faddom'd thrice,' 

Was timmer propt far thrawin : 
He tacks a swirlie, auld moss-oak, 

For some black, grousome carlin ; 
An loot a winze, an' drew a stroke, 

Till skin in blypes came haurlin 

Aft's nieves that nigUt 

XXIV. 

A wanton widow Leezie was, 

As canty as a kittlen ; 
But Och ! that night, amang the shaws, 

She got a fearfu' settlin 1 
She thro' the whins, an' by the cairn, 

An' owre the hill gaed s neviu, 
Whare three lairds' lands met at a burn\ 

To dip her left sark-sleeve in, 

Was bent that nialiU 

XXV. 

Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays, 

As thro' the glen itwimpl't ; 
Whyles round a rocky scar it strays ; 

Whiles in a wiel it dimpl't ; 
Whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays, 

Wi' bickering, dancing dazzle ; 
Whyles cookit underneeth the braes, 

Below the spreading hazel, 

Unseen that night. 

• Take an opportunity of going, unrotie'd, to a B* 
stack, and fathom it three times round. The last fall- 
om of the last time, you will catch in your arms the ap- 
pearance of your future conjugal yoke-fellow. 

t You go out, one or more, for this is a social speH, 
to a south running spring or rivulet, where " thre* 
lairds' lands meet," and dip your left shirtsleeve. 



Go to bed in sight of a fire, and hang your wet Bleeve 
before it to dry. Lie awake ; ami sometime near mid- 
ni"ht, an apparition, having the exact figure ot tM 
grand object in question, will co.ue and turn th«ilMT», 
as if to dry the other side of it. 



BURNS' TOEMS. 



XXVI. 

Amang the brachens, on the brae, 

Between her an' the moon, 
The deil, or else anoutler quey, 

Gat up an gae a croon : 

PoorLeezie's heart maist lap the hool ; 

Neer lav'rock height shejumpit, 
But mist a fit, an' in the pool 

Out-owre the lugs she plumpit, 

Wi' a plunge that night. 

XX VII. 

In order, on the clean hearth-stane, 

The luggies three* are ranged, 
And ev'ry time great care is ta'en, 

To see them duly changed : 
Auld uncle John, wha wedlock's joys 

Sin Mar's year did desire, 
Because he gat the toom-dish thrice, 

He heav'd them on the fire 

In wrath that night. 

XXVIII. 
Wi' merry Bangs, an' friendly cracks, 

I wat they dinna weary ; 
An' unco tales, an' funnie jokes, 

Their sports were cheap an' cheery, 
Till buttered so'«s,t wi' fragrant loot, 

Set a' their gabs a-steerin ; 
Syne, wi' a social glass o' strunt, 

They parted affcareerin 

Fu'blythe that night. 



THE AULD FARMER'S 

WEW-YEAR MORNING SALUTATION 
TO 
HIS AULD MARE MAGGIE, 



Oo gmng her the accustomed Ripp of Corn to hansel 
in the New- Year. 



A GUID New-year I wish thee, Maggie ! 
Hae, there's a ripp to thy auld baggie : 
Tho' thou's howe-backit, now, an' knaggie, 

I've seen the day, 
Thou could hae gaen like ony slaggie 
Out-owre the lay. 



•Taite ftiree dishes; put clean waterin one, foul 
water in another, leave the third empty : blindfold a 
person, and lead him to the hearth where the dishes 
are ranged; he (or she) dips the left hand : if by chance 
in the clean water, the future husband or wife will 
come to the bar of matrimony a maid; if in the foul, a 
widow; if in the empty dish, it foretells, with equal cer- 
tainty, no marriage at all. It is repeated three times, 
and every time the arrangement of the dishes is altered. 

tSowens, with butter instead of milk to them is al- 
ways the Halloween Supper. 



Tho' now thou's dowie, stiff, an' enty". 
An' thy auld hide's as white's a daisy, 
I've seen thee dappl't, sleek, and glaizie, 

A bonnie gray : 
He should been tight that daur'i to raize thee, 
Ance in a day. 

Thou ance was i' the foremost rank, 
A filly buirdly, steeve, an' swank, 
An' set weel down a shapely shank, 

As e'er tread yird ; 
An' could hae flown out-owre a stank, 
Like ony bird. 

It's now some nine an' twenty year, 
Sin' thou was my good father's meere; 
He giedme thee, o' tocher clear, 

An' fifty mark ; 
Tho' it was sraa', 'twas weel-won gear, 
An' thou was stark. 

When first I gaed to woo my Jenny, 
Ye then was trottin wi' your minnie : 
Tho' ye was trickie, slee, an' funnie, 

Ye ne'er was donsie ; 
But hamely , tawie, quiet, an' cannie, 
An' uncosousie. 

That day, yepranc'd wi' muckle pride 
When yebure hame my bonnie bride ; 
An' sweet, an' gracefu' she did ride, 

Wi' maiden air ! 
Kyle Stewart I could bragged wide, 
For sic a pair. 

Tho' now ye dow but hoyte an' hobble 
An' wintle like a saumont-coble, 
That day ye was a jinker noble, 

For heels an' win' I 
An' ran them till they a' did warble, 
Far, farbehin'. 

When thou an' I were young an' skeigh, 
An' stable-meals at fairs were dreigh, 
How thou waa prance, an, snore, an' skreigb, 

An' tak the road ! 
Town's bodies ran, and stood abeigh, 

An' ca't thee mad. 

When thou was corn't, an' I was mellow, 
We took the road ay like a swallow : 
At Brooses thou had ne'er a fellow, 

For pith an' speed ; 
But ev'ry tail thou pay't them hollow, 

Where'er thou gaed. 

The sma', droop-rumpl't, hunter cattle, 
Might aiblins waur't thee for a brattle ; 
But sax Scotch miles thou try't their mettle, 

An' gar't them whaizle : 
Nae whip nor spur, but just a wattle 

O'saugh or hazel. 

Thou was a noble fittie-Ian', 
As e'er in tug or tow was drawn 



BURNS' POEMS. 



33 



All thee an' I, in aught hours gaun, 

On guid March weather, 
Hae turn'd sax rood beside ourhan', 

For days thegither. 

Thou never braindg't, an' fetch't, an' fliskit, 
But thy auld tail thou wad hae whisket, 
An' spread abreed thy weel-fUTd brisket, 

Wi' pith, an' pow'r, 
Tin spritty knowe* wad rair't and risket, 

An' sly pet owre. 

When frosts lay lang, an' snaws were deep, 
An' threaten'd labour back to keep, 
I gied thy cog a wee-bit heap 

Aboon the timmer ; 
I kenn'd my Maggie wad na sleep 

For that, or simmer. 

In cart or car thou never reestit ; 
The steyest brae thou wad hae fac'tit : 
Thou never lap, and sten't, and breastit, 
Then stood to blaw ; 
But just thy step a wee thing hastit, 

Thou snoov't awa. 
My pleugh is now thy bairn-time a' : 
Four gallant brutes as e'er did draw : 
Forbye sax mae, I've sell't awa. 

That thou hast nurst : 
They drew me thretteen pund an' twa, 
The vera warst. 

Monie a sair daurk we twa hae wrought, 
An' wi' the weary warl' fought 1 
An' monie an anxious day, I thought 

We wad be beat! 
Yet here to crazy "age we're brought, 

Wi' something yet. 

And think na, my auld trusty servan', 
That now perhaps thou's less deservin, 
An' thy auld days may end in starvin, 

For my last fou, 
A heapit stimpart, I'll reserve ane 

Laid by for you. 

We've worn to crazy years thegither ; 
We'll toyte about wi' ane anither ; 
Wi' tentie care, I'll flit thy tether, 

To some hain'd rig, 
Where ye may nobly rax your leather, 
Wi' sma' fatigue. 



TO A MOUSE, 

ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST WITH 

THE PLOUGH, NOVEMBER 1785. 

WEE, sleekit, eow'rin, tim'rous beastie, 
O, what a r anic'a in thy breastie I 
Thou need na start awa sae haaty, 

Wi* bickering brattle ! 



I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee, 

Wi' murdering pattle ! 

I'm truly sorry man's dominion 
Has broken Nature's social union, 
An' justifies that ill opinion, 

Which maks thee startla 
At me, thy poor earth-born companion, 

An' fellow mortal! 

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve ; 
What then ? poor beastie, thou maun live 1 
A daimen-icker in a thrave 

'S a sma' request: 
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave, 

And never miss'tl 

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin! 
Its silly wa's the win's are strewin ! 
An' naething, now, to big a new ane, 

O ' foggage green 1 
An' bleak December's winds ensuin, 

Baith snell and keen I 

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste, 
An' weary winter comin fast, 
An' cozie here, beneath the blast, 

Thou thought to dwell, 
Till crash ! the cruel coulter past 

Out thro' thy cell. 

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble, 
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble ! 
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble, 

But house or hald, 
To thole the winter's s!«tty dribble, 

An' cranreuch cauld I 

But, Mousie,thou art no thy lane, 
In proving foresight may be vain : 
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men, 

Gang aft a-gley, 
An' lea'e us nought but grief an pain, 

Forpromis'd joy. 

Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' m* I 
The present only toucheth thee : 
But, Och ! I backward cast my e'e, 

On prospects drear, 
An' forward, tho' I canna see, 

I guess an' /ear. 



A WINTER NIGHT. 



Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are. 
That bide the pelting of this pityless storm ! 
How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides, 
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend 

you, 
From seasons such aB these ?— 

SHAKSPEARE. 



WHEN biting Boreas, fell and doure, 
Sharp ihivers thro' the leafless bow'r ; 



40 



BURNS' TOEMS. 



When Phabus gies a short-liv'd glow'r 
Far south the lift, 

Dim-dark'ning thro' the flaky show'r, 

Or whirling drift : 



Ae night the storm the steeples rock'd 
Poor labours sweet in sleep waslock'd, 
While burns, wi' snawy wreethfl up-chock'd, 

Wild-eddying swirl, 
Or thro' the mining outlet bock'd, 

Down headlong hurl. 

List'ning, the doors an' winnocks rattle, 
I thought me on the ou'rie cattle, 
Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle, 

O, winter war, 
And thro' the drift, deep-lairing sprattle, 
Beneath a scar. 

Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing, . 
That, in the merry months o' spring, 
Delighted me to hear thee sing, 

What comes o' thee ? 
Whore wilt thou cow'r thy chitterin wing. 

An' close thy e'e ? 

Ev'n you on murd'ring errands toil'd, 
Lone from your savage homes exil'd, 
The blood-stain'd roost, and sheep-cote spoil'd 

My heart forgets, 
While pityless the tempest wild 

Sore on you beats. 

Now Phoebe, in her midnight reign 
Dark mufl'd, view'd the dreary plain, 
Still crowding thoughts, a pensive train, 

Rose in my soul, 
When on my ear this plaintive strain, 

Slow, solemn, stole — 

" Blow, blow,'ye winds, with heavier gust, 

And freeze, thou bitter-biting frost ! 

Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows ! 

Not all your rage, as now united, shows 

More hard unkindness, unrelenting, 

Vengeful malice, unrepenting, 
Then heav'n illumin'd man on brother man bestows I 

See stern oppression's iron grip, 
Or mad ambition's gory hand, 

Sending, like blood hounds from the slip, 
Wo, want, and murder o'er a land 1 

Ev'n in the peaceful rural vale, 

Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale, 
How pamper'd luxury, flatt'ry by her side, 

The parasite empoisoning her ear, 

With all the servile wretches in the rear, 
Looks o'er proud property, extended wide ; 

And eyes the simple rustic hide, 

Whose toil upholds the glittering show, 

A creature of another kind, 

Some coarser substance, unrefin'd, 
Plac'd for her lordly use thus far, thus vile below; 

Where, where is love's fond, tender throe, 

With lordly honour's softly brow, 
Th» pow'rs you proudly own 



Is there beneath love's noble name, 
Can harbour, dark, the selfish aim, 

To bless himself alone ! 
Mark maiden-innocence a prey 

To love-pretending snares, 
This boasted honour turns away 
Shunning soft pity's rising sway, 
Regardless of the tears, and unavailing pray'rs 
Perhaps, this hour, in mis'ry's squalid nest, 
She strains your infant to her joyless breast, 
And with a mother's fears shrinks at the rocking 
blast ! 

Oh ye 1 who sunk in beds of down, 

Feel not a want but what yourselves create, 

Think, for a moment, on his wretched fate, 
Whom friends and fortune quite disown I 
111-satisfy'd keen nature's clam'rous call, 

Stretch 'd on his straw he lays himself to sleep, 
While thro' the ragged roof and chinky wall, 

Chill o'er his slumbers piles the drifty heap ! 

Think on the dungeon's grim confine, 

Where guilt and poor misfortune pine I 

Guilt, erring man, relating view 

But shall thy legal rage pursue 

The wretch, already crushed low 

By cruel fortune's undeserved blow ? 
Affliction's sons are brothers in distress , 
A brother, to relieve, how exquisite the bliss 1 

I heard nae mair, for Chanticleer 

Shook off the pouthery snaw, 
And hail'd the morning with a cheer, 

A cottage-rousing craw. 

But deep this truth impress'd my mind — 

Thro' all his works abroad, 
The heart, benevolent and kind, 

The most resembles God. 



EPISTLE TO DAVIE, 

A BROTHER POET.* 

January- 

I 

WHILE winds fraeaff .Ben Lomond blaw, 
And bar the doors wi' driving snaw, 

And hing us owre the ingle, 
I set me down to pass the time, 
And spin a verse ortwa o' rhyme, 

In namely westlin jingle. 
While frosty winds blaw in the drift, 

Ben to the chimla lug, 
I grudge a wee the great folks' gift, 
That live sae bien an' snug : 
I tent less, and want less 
Their roomy fire-side ; 
But hanker and canker, 
To see their cursed pride. 



* David Sittar, one of the club at Tarbolton, ■ 
author of a volume of Poems in the Scottish dialect. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



41 



.1 



It'* hardly in a *ody's pow'r, 
To keep, at times, frae being sour, 

To see how things are shar'd ; 
How best o' chiels are whiles in want, 
While coofs on countless thousands rant, 

And ken na how to wair't : 
But, Davie, lad, ne'er fash your head 

Tho' we hae little gear, 
We're fit to win our daily bread, 

As lang's we're hale and fier : 
" Mair spier na', nor fear na, "• 

Auld age ne'er mind a feg, 
The last o't, the warsto't, 

la only for to beg. 

III. 

To lie in kilns and barns at e'en, 
When banes are craz'd and bluid is thin, 

Is doubtless, great distress I 
Yet then content could mak us blest ; 
Ev'n then, sometimes we'd snatch a taste 

Of truest happiness. 
The honest heart that's free fraa a' 

Intended fraud or guile, 
However fortune kick the ba', 
Has ay some cause to smile, 
And mind still, you'll find still, 

A comfort this nae sma ; 
Nae mair then, w'll care then, 
Nae farther can we fa'. 

IV. 

What tho', like commoners of air, 
We wander out, we know not where, 

But either house or hall? 
Yet nature's charms, the hills and woods 
The sweeping vales, and foaming floods, 

Are free alike to all. 
In days when daisies deck the ground, 

And blackbirds whistle clear, 
With honest joy our hearts will bound 
To see the coming year : 
On braes when we please, then, 

We'll sit an' sowth a tune ; 
Syne rhyme till't, we'll time till't 
And sing when we hae done. 



It's no in titles nor in rank ; 

It's no in wealth like Lon'on bank, 

To purchase peace and rest ; 
It's no in mankin muckle mair : 
It's no in books; it's no in lear, 

To make us truly blest : 
If happiness hae not her seat 

And centre in the breast, 
We may be wise, or rich, or great, 

But never can be blest ; 



Ramsay. 



Nae treasures, nor pleasures, 
Could make us happy lang ; 

The heart ay's the part ay, 
That makes us right or 



VI. 

Think ye, that sic as you and I 

Wha drudge and drive thro' wet and dry 

Wi' never-ceasing-toil ; 
Think ye, ar' we less blest then they 
Wha scarcely tent us in their way, 

As hardly worth their while ? 

Alas ! how aft in haughty mood, 

God's creatures they oppress ! 

Or else, neglecting a' that's guid, 

They riot in excess ! 

Baith careless, and fearless 
Of either heav'n or hell 1 
Esteeming, and deeming 
It's a' an idle tale 1 

VII. 

Then let us cheerfu' acquiesce ; 
Nor make our scanty pleasures less, 

By pining at our state ; 
And, even should misfortunes come, 
I, here wha sit, hae met wi' some, 

An's thankfu' for them yet. 
They gie the wit of age to youth ; 

They let us ken oursel : 
They make us see the naked truth, 

The real guid and ill. 

Tho' losses, and crosses, 
Be lessons right severe, 

There's wit there, ye'll get there, 
Ye'llfind nae other where. 

VIII. 

But tent me Davie, ace o' hearts ! 

(To say aught less wad wrang the cartes. 

And flatt'ry I detest) 
This life has joys for you and I ; 
And joys that riches ne'er could buy ; 

And joys the very best. 
There's a' the pleasures o' the heart, 

The lover an' the frien' ; 
Ye hae your Meg, your dearest part, 
And I my darling Jean I 
It warms me, it charms me, 
To mention but her name : 
It heats me, it beets me, 
And sets me a' on flame ! 



O' all ye pow'rs Who rule above ! 
O Thou, whose very self art love I 

Thou know'st my words sincere 1 
The life-blood streaming thro' my hear , 
Or my more dear, immortal part, 

Is not more fondly dear 1 



BURNS' POEMS. 



42 

When heart-corroding care and giief 

Deprive my soul of rest, 
Her dear idea brings relief 
And solace to my breaBt. 
Thou Being, A.i-seeing, 

O hear my fervent pray'r ; 
Still take her, and make her 
Thy most peculiar care ! 

X. 

All hail, ye tender feelings dear ! 
The smile of love, the friendly tear, 

The sympathetic glow ; 
Long since, this world's thorny ways 
Had number'd out my weary days, 

Had it not been for you ! 
Fate still has bless'd me with a friend, 

In every care and ill ; 
And oft a more endearing band, 
A tie more tender still. 
It lightens, it brightens 
The tenebrific scene, 
To meet with, and greet with 
My Davie or my Jean. 

XI. 

O how that name inspires my style I 
The words come skelpin rank and fib, 

Amaist before I ken ! 
The ready measure rins as fine, 
As Phoebus and the famous Nine 

Were glowrin owre my pen. 
My spaviet Pegasus will limp, 

Till ance he's fairly het ; 
And then he'll hilch, and stilt and jimp, 
An' rin an unrofit : 

But le.-si then, the best then, 

Should rue this hasty ride, 

I'll light now, and dighlnow 

His sweaty wizen'd hide. 



THE LAMENT, 

OCCASIONED BY THEUNFORTUNATEISSUE 
OF A FRIEND'S AMOUR. 



Alas 1 how oft does Goodness wound itself, 
And sweet Affection prove the spring of wo '. 
HOME. 



And mourn, in lamentation deep, 
How life and love are all a dream. 

II. 

I joyless view thy rays adorn 

Thefaiutly-marked distant hill ; 
I joyless view thy trembling horn, 

Reflected in the gurgling rill : 
My fondly-fluttering heart, be still ! 

Thou busy pow'r, Remembrance, c*a*e I 
Ah ! must the agonizing thrill 

For ever bar returning peace 1 

III. 

No idly-feign'd poetic pains, 

My sad, love-lorn lamentings claim, 
No shepherd's pipe — Arcadian strains ; 

No fabled tortures, quaint and tame : 
The plighted faith ; the mutual flame ; 

The oft attested pow'rs above : 
Thepromis'd Father's tender name : 

These were the pledges of my love ! 

IV. 

Encircled in her clasping arms, 

How have the raptur'd moments flown 
How have I wish'd for fortune's charms, 

For her dear sake, and hers alone ! 
And must 1 think it ! is she gone, 

My secret heart's exulting boast? 
And does she heedless hear my groan ? 

And is she ever, ever lost I 



I. 



O THOO paieorb, that silent shines, 
White care-untroubled mortals sleep ! 

Thou seest a wretch that inly pines, 
And wanders here to wail and weep ! 

With wo I nightly vigils keep, 
Beneath thy wan unwarming beam ; 



Oh ! can she bear so base a heart 

So lost to honour, lost to truth, 
As from the fondest lover part, 

The plighted husband of her youth ! 
Alas ! life's path may be unsmocth 

Her way may lie thro' rough distress ! 
Then who her pangs and pains will soothe, 

Her sorrows share and make them less ? 

VI. 

Ye winged hours that o'er us pass, 

Enraptur'd more, the more enjoy'd, 
Your dear remembrance in my breast, 

My fondly-treasur'd thoughts employ 'd. 
That breast how dreary now, and void, 

For her too scanty once of room ! 
Ev'n ev'ry ray of hope destroy'd, 

And not a wish to gild the gloom I 

VII. 

The morn that warns th' approaching day. 

Awake me up to toil and wo : 
I see the hours in long array, 

That I must suffer, lingering, slow. 
Pull many a pang, and many a throe. 

Keen recollection's direful train, 
Must wring my soul, ere Phoebus, low, 

Shall kiss the distant, western main 



BURNS' POEMS. 



43 



VIII. 

And when my nightly couch I try, 

Sore-harass'd out with care and grief, 
Mv toil-beat nerves, and tear-worn eye, 

Keep wa tellings with the nightly thief: 
Or if I slumber, fancy, chief, 

Reigns haggard-wild, in sore affright : 
Ev'n day, allrbitter, brings relief, 

From such a horror-breathing night. 



IX. 

O 1 thou bright queen who o'er th' expanse, 

Now highest reign'st, with boundless sway I 
Oft has thy silent-marking glance 

Observ'd us, fondly-wand.'ring, stray I 
The time, unheeded, sped away, 

While love's luxurious pulse beat high, 
Beneath thy silver-gleaming ray, 

To mark the mutual kindling eye. 

X. 

Oh ! scenes in strong remembrance set : 

Scenes, never, never, to return 1 
Scenes, if in stupor I forget, 

Again I feel, again 1 burn 1 
From ev'ry joy and pleasure torn, 

Life's weary vale I'll wander thro' 
And hopeless, comfortless, I'll mourn 

A faithless woman's broken vow. 



DESPONDENCY, 

ANODE. 

I. 

OPPRESS'D with grief, oppress'd with care, 
A burden more than I can bear 
I sit me down and sigh : 
O life I thou art a galling load, 
Along a rough, a weary road, 

To wretches such as I 1 
Dim backward as I cast my view, 
What sick'ning scenes appear 1 
What sorrows yet may pierce me thro', 
Too justly I may fear 1 
Still caring, despairing, 

Must be my bitter doom ; 

My woes here shall close ne'er, 

But with the closing tomb 1 



II. 



rfcippy. y* 8 <>ns ofbusy life, 
Who equal to the bustling strife, 

No other view regard ! 
E'en when the wished end's deny'd, 



Yet while the busy meant are ply 'd, 

They bring their own reward : 
Whilst I, a hope-abandou'd wight, 

Unfilled with an aim, 
Meet ev'ry sad returning night, 
And joyless morn the -same ; 
Yon, bustling, and justling, 

Forget each grief and pain : 
I, listless, yel restless, 
Find every prospect vain. 

III. 

How blest the Solitary's lot, 
Who, all-forgetting all-forgot, 

Within his humble cell, 
The cavern wild with tangling root*, 
Sits o'er his newly -gather'd fruits, 

Beside his crystal well 1 
Or, haply, to his ev'ning thought, 

By unfrequented stream, 
The ways of men are distant brought, 
A faint collected dream : 
While praising, and raising 

iiis thoughts to heav'n on high, 
As wand'riug, meaud'ring, 
He views the solemn sky. 

IV. 

Than I, no lonely hermit plac'd 
Where never human footsteep trae'd, 

Less fit to play the part; 
The lucky moment to improve, 
And just to stop, and just to more, 

With self-respecting art : 
But ah ! those pleasures, loves, and;oy» 

Which 1 too keenly taste, 
The Solitary can despise, 
Can want, and yet be blest ! 
He needs not, he heeds not, 

Or human love or hate, 
Whilst I here must cry here, 
At perfidy ingrate ! 

V. 

Oh I enviable, early days, 

When dancing thoughtless pleasure's Ml 

To care, to guilt unknown 1 
How ill exchang'd for riper times, 
To tee/tne follies, or the crimes, 

Of others, or my own ! 
Ye tiny elves that guiltless sport, 

Like linnets in the bush, 
Ye little know the ills ye court, 
When manhood is your wish I 
The losses, the crosses, 

That active man engage I 
The fears all, the tears all, 
Of dim-declining age 



44 



BURNS' POFMS. 



WINTER. 

A DIRGE. 
I. 

THE wintry west extends his blast, 

And hail and rain does blaw ; 
Or, the stormy north sends driving forth 

The blinding sleet and snaw : 
While tumbling brown, the burn comes down, 

And roars frae bank to brae ; 
And bird and beast in covert rest 

And pass the heartless day. 



n. 



1 The sweeping!)] ast, the sky o'ercast,'* 

The joyless winter-day, 
Let others fear, to me more dear 

Than all the pride of May : 
The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul, 

My griefs it seemB to join, 
The leafless trees my fancy please, 
Their fate resembles mine. 

III. 

Thou Poie'r Supreme, whose mighty scheme 

These woes of mine fulfil, 
Here, firm, I rest, they must be best, 

Because they are Thy Will ! 
Then all I want (O, do thou grant 

This one request of mine ! ) 
Since to enjoy thou dost deny 

Assist me to resign. 



THE 

COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT 

INSCRIBED TO R. A * * * *, ESQ.. 



Let not ambition mock their useful toil, 
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure : 

Nor grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile, 
The short but simple annals of the poor. 



I. 



My lov'd, my honour'd, much respected friend 
No mercenary bard his homage pays ; 

With honest pride I scorn each selfish end ; 
My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise 

To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays, 

The lowly train in life's sequester 'd scene ; 

Tiw native feelings strong, the guileless ways : 



What A* * ** in a cottage, would have beeti , 
Ah 1 tho' his worth unknown, far happier there 
ween. 



II. 



November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh ; 

The short 'ning winter-day is near a close : 
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh, 

The black'ning trains o' craws to their repoee : 
The toil-worn Cotter, frae his labour goes, 

This night his weekly moil is at an end. 
Collects his spades, bis mattocks, and his hoes, 

Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, 
Andweary, o'er the moor, his course does hamcw*rd 
bend. 

III. 

At length his lonely cot appears in view, 

Beneath the shelter of an aged tree ; 
Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacherthro* 

To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin noise an glee. 
His wee b'u ingle, blinkin bonnily, 

His clean heart 6tane, his thriftie wife's smile, 
The lisping infant prattling on his knee, 

Does a' his weary, carking cares beguile, 
An' makes him quite forget his labour an' bis toil. 

IV. 

Belyve the elder bairns come drapping in, 

At service out, araang the farmers roun' ; 
Some ca' the pleugh, some heard, some tentie riu 

A cannie errend to a neebor town : 
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown, 

In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling inhere'e, 
Comes hame, perhaps, to show a braw new grown, 

Or deposit her sair-won penuy-fee. 
To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. 



Wi' joy unfeign'd brothers and sisters meet, 

An' each for other's weelfare kindly spiers : 
The social hours, swift-wing'd uimotic'd fleet ; 

Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears ; 
The parents, partial eye their hopeful years J 

Anticipation forward points the view. 
The mother, wi' her needle an' her sheers, 

Gars auldclaeslook amaist as weel's the ne' 
The father mixes a' wi' admonition due. 



VI. 



Their master's an' their mistress's command. 

The younkersa' are warned to obey ; 
" An' mind their labours wi' an eydent hand, 
An' ne'er, tho' out o' sight to junk or play : 
An' O ! be sure to fear the Lord alway ! 

An' mind your duty, duly, morn an' night ! 
Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, 
Implore his counsel and assisting might : 
They never sought in vain that sought the Lord 
| aright !" 



BURNS' POEMS. 



45 



VII. 

But hark I a rap comes gently to the door : 

Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, 
Tells how a ueebor lad cam o'er the moor, 

To do some errands, and convoy her hame. 
The wily mother sees the conscious flame 

Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek j 
With heart-struck, anxious care, inquires his name, 

While Jenny hafflins is affraid to speak j 
Weel pleas'd the mother hears, it'snae wild, worth- 
less rake. 



Wi' kindly welcome Jenny brings him ben ; 

A strappan youth ; he taks the mother's eye ; 
Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en ; 

The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye. 
The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy, 

But blate and laithfu', scarce can weel behave ; 
The mother, wi' a woman's wiles can spy 

What makes the youth sae bashfu' an sae grave j 
Wael pleas'd to think her bairn's respected like the 
lave. 



IX. 

happy love ! where love like this is found 1 

O heart-felt raptures ! bliss beyond compare I 
I've paced much this weary mortal round, 

And sage experience bids me this declare — 
*' If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, 

One cordial in this melancholy vale, 
•Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair, 

In others arms breath out the tender tale, 
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev'ning 
gale." 



X. 



Is there, in human form, that bears a heart— 

A wretch ! a villain ! lost to love and truth 1 
That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, 

Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth? 
Curse on his perjur'd arts ! dissembling smooth ! 

Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil'd ? 
Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, 

Points to the parents fondling o'er their child ? 
Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distraction 
wild ? 



X!. 



But now the supper crowns their simple board, 

The halesomeparrt/rA, chief o' Scotia's food : 
The soupe their only Hawlrie does afford, 

That 'yont the hallau snugly chows her cood : 
The dame brings forth in coraplimental mood, 

To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck, fell, 
An' aft he's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid ; 

The frugal wine, garrulous, will tell, 
How 'twas a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell. 



XII. 

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, 

They round the ingle, form a circle wide ; 
The sire turns o'er wi' patriarchal grace, 

The big ha' -Bible, ance his father'* pride I 
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside, 

His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare : 
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, 

He wales a portion with judicious care ; 
And " Let us worship God I " he says, with solemn air. 

XIII. 

They chant their artless notes in simple guise : 

They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim : 
Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rise, 

Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name : 
Or noble Elgin beats theheav'nward flame, 

The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays : 
Compar'd with these, Italian trills are tame ; 

The tickl'd ears no heart-felt raptures raise ; 
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise. 

XIV. 

The priest-like father reads the sacred page, 

How Abram was the friend of God on high ; 
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage 

With Amalek's ungracious progeny ; 
Or how the royal bard did groaning lie 

Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire ; 
Or, Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry ; 

Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire ; 
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. 

XV. 

Perhaps, the Christian volume is the theme, 

How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed j 
How He, who bore in Heaven the second name ; 

Had not on earth whereon to lay his head : 
How his first followers and servants sped ; 

The precepts sage they wrote to many aland • 
How he who lone in Patmos banished, 

Saw fag the sun a mighty angel stand ; 
And heard great .Bao'forc's doom pronounc' 
ven's command. 

XVI. 

Then kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal Ring, 
. The saint, the father, and the husband prays t 
Hope u springs exulting on triumphant wing,"' 

That thus they all shall meet in future days : 
There ever bask in uncreated rays, 

No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear. 
Together hymning their Creator's praise, 

In such society, yet still mere dear ; 
While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere. 

XVII. 

Compar'd with this, how poor Religion's pnde, 
In all the pomp of method, and of art, 
• Pope's Windsor Forest. 



4G 



BURNS' POEMS. 



When men display to congregations wide, 
Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart I 

The Pow'r, iucens'd, the pageant will desert, 
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ; 

But haply, in some cottage far apart, 
May hear, well pleas'd, the language of the soul ; 
And in his book of life the inmates poor enrol. 

XVIII. 

Then homeward all tak off their sev ral way ; 

The youngling cottagers retire to rest : 
The parent-pair their secret homage pay, 

And proffer up to Heaven the warm request 
That He who stills the raven's clam'rous nest, 

And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride, 
Would, in the way his wisdom sees the best, 

For them and fcr their little ones provide ; 
But chiefly, in their hearts with^race divine preside. 

XIX. 

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs , 

That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad : 
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, . 

" An honest man's the noblest work of God :" 
And certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road, 

The cottage leaves the palace far behind ; 
What is a lordling's pomp ! a cumbrous load, 

Disguising of the wretch of human kind, 
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin'd 1 

XX. 

O Scotia ! my dear, my native soil 1 

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent I 
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil, 

Be bless'd with health, and peace, and sweet con- 
tent ! 
And O ! may Heaven their simple lives prevent 

From luxury's contagion, weak and vile 1 
Then, howe'er crowns and coroners be rent, 

A virtuous populace may rise the while, 
And stand awall of fire around their much-lov'd Isle. 

XXI. 

O Thou ! who pour'd the patriotic tide 

That stream'd thro' Wallace's undaunted heart ; 
Whodar'd to nobly stem tyrannic pride, 

Or nobly die, the second glorious part, 
(The patriot's God, peculiarly thou art, 

His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward !) 
O never, never, Scotia's realm desert : 

But still the patriot , and the patriot bard, 
In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard 1 



MAN WAS MADE TO MOURN. 

A DIRGE. 



WHEN chill November's surly blast 
Made fields and forests bare, 



One ev'ning, as I wander'd forth 

Along the banks of Ayr, 
Ispy'daman, whose aged step 

Seem'd weary, worn with care ; 
His face was furrow 'd o'er with years, 

And hoary was his hair. 

II. 

" Young stranger, whither wand'rest thou i 

Began the reverend sage ; 
" Does thirst of wealth thy step constrain, 

Or youthful pleasure's rage ; 
Or haply, press'd with cares and woes, 

Too soon thou hast began 
To wander forth, with me, to mourn 

The miseries of man 1 

III. 

" The sun that overhangs yon moors, 

Outspreading far and wide, 
Where hundreds labour to support 

A haughty lordling's pride ; 
I've seen yon weary winter -sun 

Twice fi,rty times return ; 
And ev'ry tune has added proofs, 

That man was made to mourn. 

IV. 

" O man ! while in thy early years, 

How prodigal of time 1 
Mispeuding all thy precious hours, 

Thy glorious youthful prime ! 
Alternate follies take the sway; 

Licentious passions burn ; 
Which tenfold force gives nature's law, 

That man was made to i 



V. 

" Look not alone on youthful prime I 

Or manhood's active might ; 
Man then is useful to his kind, 

Supported in his right : 
But see him on the edge of life, 

With cares and sorrows worn, 
Then age and want, Oh ! ill match 'd p 

Show man was made to mourn. 

VI. 

" A few seem favourites of fate, 

In pleasure's lap carest ; 
Yet , think , not all the rich and great 

Are likewise truly blest. 
But, Oh 1 what crowds in ev'ry land, 

Are wretched and forlorn ; 
Thro' weary life this lesson learn, 

That man was made to mourn, 

VII. 

" Many and sharp the num'rouiilli 
Inwoven with our frame ! 



BURNS' POEMS. 



47 



More pointed still we make ourselves, 
Regret, remorte, and shame I 

And man, whose heaven-erected face 
The smiles of love adorn, 

Man's inhumanity to man 
Makes countless thousands mourn I 

V1I1. 

See yonder poor, o'erlabour'd wight, 

!?o abject, mean, and vile, 
Who begs a brother of the earth 

To give him leave to toil ; 
And see his lordly fellaw-worm 

TLe poor petition spurn, 
Unmindful, tho' a weeping wife 

And helpless offspring mourn. 

IX. 

" If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave,— 

By nature's law design'd, 
Why was an independent wish 

E'er planted in my mind? 
Vnot, why am I subject to 

Hie cruelty or scorn ? 
Or why has man the will and pow'r 

To make his fellow mourn ? 



" Yet, let not this, too much, my son, 

Disturb thy youthful breast : 
TWb partial view of human-kind 

Is surely not the last! 
The poor, oppressed, honest man, 

Had never, sure, been born, 
Had there not been some recompense 

To comfort those that mourn 

XI. 

" O death ! the pool man's dearest friend, 

The kindest and the best ! 
Welcome the hour my aged limbs 

Are laid with thee at rest I 
The great, the wealthy, fear thy blow, 

From pomp and pleasure torn ; 
But, Oh! abless'd relief to those 

That weary-laden mourn !" 



PRAYER IN THE PROSPECT 

OF 

DEATH. 

i. 

O THOU unknown, Almighty Cause 

Of all my hope and fear 1 
In whose dread presence, ere an hour, 

Perhaps I must appear ! 



II. 

If I have wander'd in those paths 

Of life I ought to shun ; 
As something, loudly, in my breast, 

Remonstrates I have done ; 

III. 

Thou know'st that thou hast formed me 
With passions wild and strong ; 

And list'ningto their witching voice 
Has often led me wrong. 



IV. 

Where human weakness has come short, 

Or frailty stept aside, 
Do thou All-Good ! for such thou art, 

In shades of darkness hide. 



Where with intention I have err'd, 

No other plea I have, 
But, Thou art good ; and goodness still 

Delighteth to forgive. 



STANZAS 

ON THE SAME OCCASION. 

WHY am I loath to leave thi3 earthly scene ? 

Have I so found it full of pleasing charms ? 
Some drops of joy with draughts of ill between '. 

Some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewing storms J 
Is it departing pangs my soul alarms ? 

Or death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode? 
For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms ; 

I tremble to approach an angry God, 
And justly smart beneath his sin-avenging rod. 

Fain would I say, " Forgive my foul offence I ** 

Fain promise never more to disobey ; 
But,'should my Author health again dispense, 

Again I might desert fair virtue's way ; 
Again in folly's path might go astray : 

Again exalt tho brute and sink the man ; 
Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray, 

Who act so counter heavenly mercy's plan? 
Who sin so oft have mourn 'd, yet to temptation ran t 

O thou, great Governor of all below ! 

If I may dare a lifted eye to Thee, 
Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow, 

Or still the tumult of the raging sea : 
With that controlling pow'r assist ev'n me, 

Those headlong furious passions to confine ; 
For all unfit I feel my pow'rs to be, 

To rule their torrent in th' allowed line J 
O, aid me with thy help, Omnipotence Divine I 



BURNS' POEMS. 



LYlN3.iT A REVEREND FRIEND'S HOUSE 
ONE NIGHT, THE AUTHOR LEFT 

THE FOLLOWING VERSES 

IN THE ROOM WHERE HE SLEPT. 
I. 

O THOU dread Pow'r, who reign'st aboTel 

I know thou wilt me hear : 
When for this scene of peace and love, 

I make my pray'r sincere. 

II. 

The hoary sire — the mortal stroke, 

Long, long, be pleas'd to spare ! 
To bless his little filial flock, 

And show what good men are. 

m. 

She, who her lovely offspring eyes 

With tender hopes an fears, 
O bleBs her with a mother's joys, 

But spare a mother's tears ! 

IV. 

Their hope, their stay, their darling youth, 

In manhood's dawning blush ; 
Bless him, thou God of love and truth, 

Up to a parent's wish 1 

V. 

The beauteous, seraph sister-band 

With earnest tears I pray, 
Thou know'st the snares on ev'ry hand, 

Guide thou their steps alway : 

VI. 

When soon or late they reach that coast, 

O'er life's rough ocean driv'n, 
May they rejoice, no wand'rer lost, 

A family in Heav'n ! 



THE FIRST PSALM. 

THE man, in life wherever plac'd, 

Hath happinsss in store, 
Who walks not in the wicked's way, 

Nor learns their guilty lore 1 

Nor from the seat of scornful pride 

Casts forth his eyes abroad, 
But with humility and awe 

Still walks before his God. 

That man shall flourish like the treet 
Which by the streamlets grow j 



The fruitful top is spread on high, 
And firm the root below. 

But he whose blossom buds in guilt 
Shall to the ground be cast, 

And like the rootless stubble, tost 
Before the sweeping blast. 

For why ? that God the good adore 
Hath giv'n them peace and rest, 

But hath decreed that wicked men 
Shall ne'er be truly blest. 



A PRAYER, 



UNDER THE PRESSURE OF VIOLENT 
ANGUISH. 

O THOU Great Being ! what thou art 

Surpasses me to kuow : 
Yet sure I am, that known to thee 

Are all thy works below. 

Thy creature here before thee stands, 

AH wretched and distrest ; 
Yet sure those ills that wring my soul 

Obey thy high behest. 

Sure thou, Almighty, canst not act 

From cruelty or wrath ! 
0, free my weary eyes from tears, 

Or close them fast in death 1 

But if I must afflicted be, 

To suit some wise design ; 
Then man my soul with firm resolve* 

To bear and uoi repine 1 

THE 



FIRST SIX VERSES OF THE NINETIETH 

PSALM 

O THOU, the first, the greatest friend 

Of all the human race ! 
Whose strong right hand has ever been 

Their stay and dwelling place ! 



Before the mountains heav'd their heads 

Beneath thy forming hand, 
Before this pond'rous globe itself, 

Arose at thy command : 

That pow'r which rais'd and still uphold* 

This universal frame, 
From countless, unbeginning time 

Was ever still the same. 

Those mighty periods of years 

Which seem to us so vast, 
Appear no more before thy sight 

Than yesterday that's past. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



49 



Thou giv'rt the word : Thy creature, man, 

la to existence brought : 
Again thou say 'st , "Ye sons of men, 

Return ye into nought I" 

Thou layest them, with all their cares, 

In everlasting sleep"; 
As with a flood thou tak'st them off 

With overwhelming sweep. 

They flourish like the morning fiow'r, 

In beauty's pride array'd ; 
But long ere night cut down it lies 
I All wither'd and decay'd. 



TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY, 

ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE 
PLOtTGH IN APRIL 1786. 

WEE, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r, 
Thou's met me in an evil hour ; 
Tor I maun crush amang the stoure 

Thy slender stem ; 
To spare thee now is past my pow'r, 

Thou bonnie gem. 

Alas 1 it's no thy neebor sweet, 
The bonnie Lark, companion meet ! 
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet ! 

Wi' spreckled breast. 
When upward-springing, blythe to greet 

The purpling east. 

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north 
Upon thy early, humble birth ; 
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth 

Amid the storm, 
Scarce rear'd above the parent earth 

Thy tender form. 

The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield, 
Highshelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield 
But thou beneath the random bield 

O' clod or st a ne, 
ldornsthe hiatie stibble-field, 

Unseen, alane. 

There in thy scanty mantle clad, 
/hy snawy bosom sun-ward spread, 
Jhou lifts thy unassuming head 

In humble guise ; 
But now the share uptears thy bed, 

And low thou lies ! 

Such is ihe fate of artless Maid, 
Sweet fow'ret ot the rural shade ! 
By love's simplicity betray'd, 

And guileless trust, 
Till she, like thee, all soil'd is laid 

Low i'the dust. 



Such is the fate of simple Bard, 
On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd I 
Unskilful he to note the card 

Of prudent lor a 
Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, 

And whelm him o'er i 

Such fate of suffering worth is giv'n, 
Who long with wants and woes has striV'tt, 
By human pride or cunning driv'n, 

To mis'ry's brink, 
Till wrench 'd of ev'ry stay but Heao'n 

He. ruin'd, sine I 



Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate 
That fate is thine — no distant date; 
Stern Ruin's plough-share drives, elate, 

Full on thy bloom, 
Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight, 

Shall be thy doom I 



TO RUIN. 



i. 



ALL hail ! inexorable lord 1 

At whose destruction-breathing word, 

The mightiest empires fall ! 
Thy cruel wo-delighted train, 
The ministers of grief and pain, 

A sullen welcome, all ! 
Withstern-resolv'd, despairing eye, 

I see each aimed dart ; 
For one has cut my dearest tie, 
And quivers in my heart. 
Then low'ring, and pouring, 

The storm no more I dread ; 

Tho' thick'ning and black'ning, 

Round my devoted head. 

II. 

And, thou grim pow'r, by life abhorr'd, 
While life ^.pleasure can afford, 

Oh I hear a wretch's pray'r; 
No more I shrink appall'd, afraid ; 
I court, I beg thy friendly aid, 
To close this scene of care 1 
When shall my soul in silent peace, 

Resign life's joyless day ; 
My weary heart its throbing cease, 
Cold mould'ring in the clay ? 
No fear more, no tear more, 
To stain my lifeless face ; 
Enclasped, and grasped 
Within thy cold embrace ! 



TO MISS L— , 

WITH BEATTIE'S POEMS AS ANEW YEAR'S 

GIFT, JANUARY 1, 1787. 
AGAIN the silent wheels of time 
Their annual round have drir'n. 



50 

And you, tho' scarce in maiden prime, 
Are so much nearer Heav'n. 

Mo gifts have I from Indian coasts, 

The infant year to hail ; 
I send you more than Indian boasts, 

In Edwin's simple tale. 

Our sex with guile and faithless love 
Is charg'd, perhaps, too true ; 

But may, dear maid, each lover prove 
An Edwin still to you ! 



EPISTLE TO A YOUNG FRIEND. 

MAY— 1786. 



I LANG hae thought, my youthfu' friend, 

A something to have sentyou, 
Tho' it should serve nae other end 

Than just a kind memento 1 
But how the subject-theme may gang 

Let time and chance determine ; 
Perhaps it may turn out a sang 

Perhaps turn out a sermon. 



Ye'U try the world soon, my lad, 

And, Andrew dear, believe me, 
Ye'll find mankind an unco squad, 

And mu^kle they may grieve ye : 
For care and trouble set your thought, 

Ev'n when your end's attained ; 
And a' your views may come to nought, 

When ev'ry nerve is strained. 

III. 

I'll no say, men are villains a' ; 

The real, harden'd wicked, 
Whahae nae check but human law, 

Are to a few restricked : 
But och ! mankind are unco weak, 

An' little to be trusted ; 
If self the wavering balance shake, 

It's rarely right adjusted. 

IV. 

Yet they wha fa' in fortune's strife, 

Tksir fate we should nae censure, 
For ffiill th' important end of life, 

They equally may answer ; 
A man may hae an honest heart, 

Tho'poortith hourly stare him ; 
A man may tak a neebor's part, 

Yet has Dae cash to spare him. 



Ay free, affhan' your story tell, 
When wi' a bosom crony ; 



BURNS' POEMS. 



But still keep something to yourMi 

Ye scarcely tell to ony. 
Conceal yoursel as weel's ye can 

Frae critical dissection ; 
But keek thro' ev'ry other man, 

Wi' sharpen'd, slee inspection. 

VI. 

The sacred lowe o' weel-plac'd lo»t, 

Luxuriantly indulge it; 
But never tempt th' illicit rove, 

Tho' naething should divulge >i : 
I wave the quantum o' the sin, 

The hazard of concealing ; 
But och ! it hardens a' within, 

And petrifies the feeling ! 

VII. 

To catch dame Fortune's golden inilim 

Assiduous wait upon her ; 
And gather gear by ev'ry wile 

That's justified by honour : 
Not for to hide it in a hedge, 

Not for a train-attendant ; 
But for the glorious privilege 

Or being independent. 

VIII. 

The fear o' hell's a hangman's whip. 
To haud the wretch in order ; 

But where ye feel your honour grip, 
Let that ay be your border ; 

Itsslightest touches, instant pause- 
Debar a' side pretences ; 

And resolutely keep its laws 
Uncaring consequences. 

IX. 

The great Creatorto revere, 

Must sure become the creature ; 
But still the preaching cant forbear, 

And ev'n the rigid feature : 
Yet ne'er with wits profane to range, 

Be complaisance extended ; 
An Atheist's laugh's a poor exchange 

For Deity offended ! 

X. 

When ranting round in pleasure's rinj. 

Religion may be blinded ; 
Or if she gie a randomsting, 

It may be little minded ; 
But when on life we're tempest-drhr'u, 

A conscience but a canker — 
A correspondence flx'd wi' Heav'n, 

Is sure a noble anchor I 

XI. 

Adieu, dear, amiable youth I 
Your heart can ne'er be wanting t 



BURNS' POEMS. 



51 



May prudence, fortitude, and truth, 

Erect your brow undaunting ! 
In ploughman phrase, " God send you speed, 

Still daily to grow wiser : 
And may you better reck the rede, 

Than ever did th' adviser ! 



ON A SCOTCH BARD. 

GONE TO THE WEST INDIES. 

V YE whalive by soups o' drink, 
k' ye wha live by crambo-clink. 
A' ye wha live and never think, 

Come mourn wi' me 1 
9ur billie 's gien us a' a jink, 

An' owre the sea. 

Lamenthim a' ye ratin core, 
IHia dearly like a random-splore, 
£ae mair he'll join the merry-roar, 

In social key ; 
For now he's ta'en anither shore, 

An' owre the sea. 

f he bonnie lasses weel may wiss him, 
And in their dear petitions place him : 
The widows, wives, an' a' may bless him, 
Wi' tearfu' e'e. 
For weel I wat they '11 sairly miss him. 

That's owre the sea. 

O Fortune, they hae room to grumble ? 
Gadst thou ta'en aff some drowsy bummle, 
Wha can do nought but fyke an' fumble, 

'Twad been, nae plea ; 
But he was gleg as ony wumble, 

That's owre the sea. 

Auld, cantie Kyle may weepers wear, 
An' stain them wi' the saut, saut tear ; 
"Twill mak her poor auld heart I fear, 

In flinders flee ; 
He was her laureate monie a year, 

That's owie the sea. 

He saw misfortune's cauld nor-west 
Cang mustering up a bitter blast ; 
ijilletbrak his heart at last, 

111 may she be ! 
«o, took a birth afore the mast, 

An' owre the sea. 

To tremble under Fortune's cummock, 
On scarce a bellyfu' o' drummock, 
Wi' his proud, independent stomach, 

Could ill agree ; 
«o, row't hishurdies in a hammock, 

An' owre the sea. 

He ne'er was gien to great misguiding, 
T et coin his pouehes wad na bide in ; 
Wi' him it neer was under hiding ; 

He dealt it free : 



The muse was a' that he took pride in, 

That's owre the sea. 

Jamaica bodies, use him weel, 
An' hap him in a cazie biel : 
Ye '11 find him ay a dainty chiel, 

Andfou' o'glee ; 
He wad na wrang'd the vera deil, 

That's owre the sea. 

Fareweel, my rhyme-composing billie! 
Your native soil was right ilUwillie ; 
But may ye flourish like a lily, 

Nowbonnilie 1 
I'll toast ye in my hindmost gillie, 

Tho' owre the sea. 



TO A HAGGIS. 

FAIR fa' your honest, sonsie face, 
Great chieftain o' the puddin-race 1 
Aboon them a' ye tak your place. 

Painch, tripe, or tnlrm i 
Weel are ye worthy of a grace 

As lang's my arm. 

The groaning trencher there ye fill, 
Your hurdies like a distant hill, 
Your pin wad help to mend a mill 

In time o' need, 
While thro' you-r pores the dews distil 

Like amber bead 

His knife see rustic labour dight, 
An' cut you up with ready slight, 
Trenching your gushing entrails bright 

Like onie ditch ; 
And then, O what a glorious sight 

Warm-reekin, rich! 

Then horn for horn they stretch an' strive, 
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive, 
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve 

Are bent like drum! ; 
Then auld guidman, maist like to ryve, 

Beihankit hums. 

Is there that o'er his French ragout, 
Or olio that wad staw a sow, 
Or fricassee wad mak her spew 

Wi' perfect sconner, 
Looks down wi' sneering, scomfu' view 

On sic a dinner? 

Poor devil ! see him owre his trash, 
As feekless as awither'drash, 
His spindle shank a guid whip lash, 

His nieve a nit ; 
Thro' bloody flood or field co dash, 

O how unfit 1 

But mark the rustic, haggis-fed, 
The trembling earth resounds his tread, 
Clap in his walie nieve a blade, 

He'll mak it whiwle | 



52 



BURNS' POEMS. 



' legs, an* arms, an' beads will sned, 

Like taps o' thissle. 



Ye pow'rs, wha mak manKind your care, 
And dish them out their bill o' fare, 
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware 

That jaups in luggies 
But, if ye wish her gratefu' pray 'r, 

Gie her a Haggis J 



A DEDICATION 

TO GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ,. 

EXPECT na, Sir, in this narration, 
Afleechin.fleth'rin dedication, 
To roose you up, an' ca' you guid, 
An' sprung o' great an' noble bluid, 
Because ye're surnam'd like his grace, 
Perhaps related to the race ; 
Then when I'm tir'd — and sae are ye, 
Wi' mony a fulsome, sinfu' lie, 
Set up a face, how I stop short, 
For fear your modesty be hurt. 

This may do— maun do, Sir, wi' them wha 
Maun please the folk for a wamefou ; 
For me 1 sae laight I needna bow, 
For, Lord be thankit, I can plough ; 
And when I downa yoke a naig, 
Then, Lord, be thankit, / can beg ; 
iaelshall say, an' that's nae flatt'rin, 
It 's just sic poet an' sic patron. 

The Poet, some grade angel help him, 
Jr else, I fear some ill ane skelp him, 
He may do weel for a' he's done yet, 
But only he's no just begun yet. 

The Patron, (Sir, ye maun forgie me, 
I winna lie, come what will o' me) 
On ev'ry hand it will allow'd be, 
He's just— nae better than he should be, 

I readily and freely grant, 
He downa see a poor man want ; 
What's no his ain he winna tak it, 
What ance he says he winna break it : 
Ought he can lend he'll no refus't, 
Till aft hisguidnessis abus'd : 
And rascals whyles that do him wrang, 
Ev'en that, he does na mind it lang : 
As master, landlord, husband, father, 
He does na fail his part in either. 

But then, na thanks to him for a' that ; 
Nae godly symptom ye can ca' that ; 
It's naething but a milder feature, 
Of our poor, sinfu', corrupt nature. 
Ye'll get the best o' moral works, 
Mang black Gentoos and pagan Turks, 
Or hunters wild on Ponotaxi, 
Wha never heard of orthodoxy. 



That he's the poor man's friend in need. 
The gentleman in word and deed, 
It's no thro' terror of d-mn-tlon ; 
It's just a carnal inclination. 

Morality, thou deadly bane, 
Thy tens o' thousands thou hast slain I 
Vain is his hope, whose stay and trust la 
In moral mercy, truth, and justice 1 

No — stretch a point to catch a piaek ; 

Abuse a brother to his back ; 

Steal thro' a winnock frae a wh-re, 

But point the rake that taks the door : 

Be to the poor like onie whunstane, 

And haud their noses to the grunstane. 

Ply every art o' legal thieving ; 

No matter, stick to sound believing. 

Learn three-mile pray'rs, and half-mile grace* 
Wi' weel-spread looves, an' lang wry facea ; 
Grunt up a solemn, lengthen'd groan, 
And damn a' parties but your own ; 
I'll warrant then, ye're nae deceiver, 
A steady, sturdy, staunch believer. 

O ye wha leave the springs of C-h-n t 
For gumlie dubs of your ain delvln 1 
Ye sons of heresy and error, 
Ye'll some day squeel in quaking terror i 
When vengeance draws the sword in wrath, 
And in the fire throws the sheath ; 
When Ruin, with his sweeping besom,. 
.^ust frets till Heav'u commission fftm 'jxt * 
While o'er the harp pale mis'ry moans, 
And strikes the ever deep'ning tones, 
Still louder shrieks, and heavier groans 1 

Yonr pardon, Sir, for this digression, 
I maist forgat my dedication ; 
But when divinity comes cross me, 
My readers still are sure to lose me. 

So, Sir, ye see 'twas nae daft vapour, 
But I maturely thought it proper, 
When a' my work I did review, 
To dedicate them, Sir, to You : 
Because (ye need na tak it 111) 
I thought them something like yours*'. 

Then patronise them wi' your favour, 
And your petitioner shall ever — 
I had amaist said, ever pray, 
But that's a word I need na say : 
For prayin I ha« little skill o't ; 
I'm baith dead-sweer, an' wretched ill o't ; 
But I'se repeat each poor man's^ray'r, 
That kens or hears about you, Sir — 

" May ne'er misfortune's growing hark, 
Howl thro' the dwelling o* the Clerk! 
May ne'er his gen'rous, honest heart, 
For that same gen'rous spirit smart 1 
May K******'s far honour'd name 
Lang beet his hymeneal flame, 
TillH*******'s, at least a dizen, 
Are frae their nuptial labours risen. ; 



BURNS' POEMS. 



53 



Five bonnle lasse« round their table, 
And seven braw fellows, stout an' able 
To serve their king and country weel, 
By word, or pen, or pointed steel I 
May health and peace, with mutual raya. 
Shine on the evening o' his days ; 
Till his wee curlic John's ier-oe, 
When ebbing life nae mair shall flow, 
The last, sad, mournful rites bestow !" 

I will not wind a lang conclusion, 
Wi' complimentary effusion: 
But whilst, your wishes and endeavours 
Are blest with Fortune's smiles and favour*, 
I am, dear Sir, with zeal most fervent, 
Your much indebted, humble servant. 

But if (which Pow'rs above prevent!) 
That iron-hearted carl, Want, 
Attended in his grim advances, 
By sad mistakes, and black miscbaaees, 
While hopes, and joys, and pleasures fly him, 
Make you as poor a dog as I am, 
Your humble servant then no more ; 
For who would humbly serve the poor ! 
But by a poor man's hopes in Heav'n 1 
While recollection's pow'r is given, 
If, in the vale of humble life, 
The victim sad of fortune's strife, 
I, thro' the tender gushing tear, 
Should racognize my master deir, 
If friendless, low, we meet together, 
Then, Sir. your hand— my jnewi mdbrotheri 



TO A LOUSE. 

ON SEEING ONE ON A LADY'S BONNET 
AT CHURCH. 

HA t whare ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie 1 
Your impudence protects you sairly : 
I carina say but ye strunt rarely, 

Ow re gauze and lace ; 
Tho' faith, I fetiye dine but sparely 

On sic a place. 

Yc ugly, creepis, blastit wonner, 
Detested, shunn'd by saunt an' sinner, 
How dara ye set your fit upon her, 

Sae fine a lady ! 
( somewhere else and seek your dinner 
On some poor body. 

Swith, in some beggar's haffet squattle ; 
Where ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle 
Wi' ither kindred, jumpin cattle, 

In shoals and nations ; 
Whare horn or bane ne'er dare unsettle 

Your thick plantations. 

Now hand ye there, ye're out o' sight, 
Below the fatt'rils, snug an' tight ; 
Na, faith ye yet,! ye'll no be right 

Till ye've got on it 



The vera tapmos*, tow'ring height 

0' Miss's boiaut. 

My sooth ! risrht bauld ye set yourroM •at, 
As plump and gr»/ as onle grozet J 

for some rank, murcuriel rozet, 

Or fell, red ira*Muan, 

1 'd gie you sic a hearty doze o't, 

Wad dress your drnddum. 



I wad na been aurpris'd to spy 
You on an auld wife's flainen toy ; 
Or aiblins some b*t. duddie boy, 

0n'» wyliecoat ; 
But Miss's fine Lunardi! fie, 

How dare ye do't I 

O Jenny, dinnt toss your head, 
An' set your beauties a' abread 1 
Ye little ken what cursed speed 

The blastie's maldn \ 
Thae winks and finger-ends, I dread, 
Are notice t akin t 

wad some pow'r the giftie gie u» 
To see oursels as others see us! 
It wad frae monie a blunder free tit 

And f oo ns n notion : 
Wl at airs in dress an' gait wad lea't us, 
And ev'n Devotion I 



ADDRESS TO EDINBURGH, 



EDINA! Scotia's darling seat! 

All hail thy payees and tow're, 
Where once beneath a monarch's fee% 

Sat legislation's sov'reign pow'rs ! 
From maiking wildly-scatter'd flow're, 

As on the banks of Ayr I stray'd. 
And singing, lone, the htg'ring hours, 

I shelter in thy honour'd shade. 



II. 

Here wealth still swells the golden tido, 

As busy trade his labours plies ; 
There architecture's noble pride 

Bids elegance and splendor rise ; 
Here justice, from her native skies, 

High wields her balance and her rod J 
There learning, with his eagle eyes. 

Seeks science in her coy abode. 

III. 

Thy Sons, Edin* »oei*l- kind, 
With open arms the stranger hail ; 

Their views enlarg'd, their lib'ral mind I 
Above the narrow, rural vale j 



54 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Attentive still to sorrow's wail, 
Or modest merits ! siient claim ; 

And never may their sources fail 1 
And never envy blot their name I 



Thy daughters bright thy walks adorn ! 

Gay as the gilded summer sky, 
Sweet as the dewy milk-white thorn, 

Dear as the raptur'd thrill of joy ! 
Fair B strikes th' adoring eye, 

Heav'n's beauties on my fancy shine ; 
I see the sire of love on high, 

And own his work indeed divine ! 



There, watching high the least alarms, 

Thy rough, rude fortress gleams afar ; 
Like some bold vet'ran, gray in arms, 

And mark'd with many a seamy scar : 
The pond'rous walls and massy bar, 

Grim-rising o'er the rugged rock,; 
Have oft withstood assailing war, 

And oft repeU'dthe invader's shock. 



With awe-struck thought, and pitying tears, 

I view that noble, stately dome, 
Where Scotia's kings of other years, 

Pam 'd heroes 1 had their royal home : 
Alas ! how chang'd the times to come 1 

Their royal name low in the dust ! 
Their hapless race wild-wand'ring roam ! 

Tho' rigid law cries out, 'twas just ! 



Wild beats my heart to trace your steps, 

Whose ancestors, in days of yore, 
Thro' hostile ranks andruin'd gaps 

Old Scotia's bloody lion bore : 
Ev'n I who sing in rustic lore, 

Haply my sires have left their shed, 
And fac'd grim danger's loudest roar, 

Bold-following where your fathers leu ! 



Edina ! Scotia's darilngseat ! 

All hail thy palaces and tow'rs, 
Where once beneath a monarch's feet 

Sat legislation's sov ' reign pow'rs '. 
From marking wildly-scatter'd flow'r 

As on the banks of Ayr I stray'd, 
And singing, lone, the ling'ring hours, 

i shelter in thy honour'd shade. 



EPISTLE TO J. LAPR 

AN OLD SCOTTISH BARD. 

APRIL 1st, 1785. 

WHILE briers and woodbines budding gi 
An' paitricksscraichin loud at e'en, 
An' morning poussie whiddin seen, 

Inspire my muse, 
This freedom in an unknown frieo', 

I pray excuse. 

On fasten-een we had a rockin, 
To ca' the crack and weave ourstockin ; 
And there was muckle fun an' jokin, 

Ye need na doubt ; 
At length we had a harty yokin, 

At sang about. 

There was ae sang amang the rest, 
Aboon theu. t pleased me best, 
That some kind husband had addrest 

To some sweet wife t 
It thirl M the heart strings thro' the breast, 
A' to the life. 

I've scarce heard ought describes sae weel, 
What gen'rous, manly bosoms feel ; 
Thought I, " Can this ^ Pope, or Steele, 

JlrBeattie's wark?" 
They tald me 'twas an odd kind chiel 

About MuirJcirk. 

It pat me fidgin-fain to heai't, 
And sae about him there I spier't 
Then a' thatken't him round declar'd 

He had ingine, 
That nane excell'd it, few cam near't, 
It was sae fine. 

That set him to a pint of ale, 
An' either douce or merry tale, 
Or rhymes an' sangs he'd made himsel, 

Or witty catches, 
'Tween Inverness and Tiviotdale, 

He had few matches. 

Then up I gat, an' swoor an' aith, 
Tho' I should paw my pleugh and graith, 
Ordie a cadger pownie's death, 

At some dyke-back, 
A pint an' gill I'd gie thembaith 

To hear your crack. 

But, first an' foremost, I should tell, 
Amaist as soon as I could spell, 
I to the crambo-jingle fell, 

Tho' rude an' rough, 
Yet crooning to a body's sel, 

Does well eneugh. 

I am nae poet, in a sense, 
But justa rhymer, like, by chance, 
An' hae to learning nae pretence, 

Yet, what the matter/ 






BURNS' POEMS. 



55 



Whene'er my muse does on me glance, 

I jingle ather. 

Your critic-folk may cock their nose, 
And say, " How can you e'er propose, 
You wha ken hardly verse frae prose, 

To make a sang i" 
But, by your leaves, my learned foes, 

Ye're maybe wrang. 

What's a' your jargon o' your schools, 
Your Latin names for horns an' stools ; 
if honest nature made you fools, 

What sairs your grammars : 
Ye'd better ta'en up spades and shools, 

Orknappin hammers. 

A set o' dull conceited hashes, 
Confuse their brains in college classes I 
They gang in stirks, and come out asses, 

Plain truth to speak ; 
An' »yne they think to clii..b Parnassus 

By dint o' Greek. 

Gie me ae spark o' Nature's fire, 
That's a' the learning I desire ; 
Then tho' i drudge thro' dub an' mire 

At pleugh or cart, 
My muse, tho' hamely in attire, 

May touch the heart. 

for a spunk o' Allan's glee, 

Or Fergusson's, the bauld and slee, 
Or bright Lapraik's my friend to be, 

If I can hit it 1 
That would be lear eneugh for me, 

If I could ret it. 

Now, Sir, if ye hae friends enow, 
Tho' real friends, I b'lieve, are few, 
Yet, if your catalogue be fou, 

I'se no insist, 
But gif ye want ae friend that's true. 

I'm on your list. 

1 winna blaw about mysel ; 
As ill I like my fauts to tell ; 

But friends, and folk that wish me well, 

They sometimes roose me ; 
Tho' I maun own, asmonie still 

As far abuse me. 

There's ae weefaut they whyles lay to me, 
I like the lasses — Gude forgie me ! 
For monie a plack they wheedle frae me, 
At dance or fair ; 
Way be some ither thing they gie me 

They weel can spare. 

But Mauchline race, or Muchline fair, 
I should be proud to meet you there ; 
We'se gie ae night's discharge to care, 

If we forgather, 
An' hae a swap o' rhymin-ware 

Wi' aneanitheir. 



The four-gill chap, we'se gar himclatter, 
An'kirsen him wi' reekin water ; 
Syne we'll sit down an' tak ourwhitter, 

To cheer our heart ; 
An' faith we'se be acquainted better 

Before we part. 

Awa , ye selfish warly race, 
Wha think that havins, sense, an' grace, 
Ev'n love an' friendship , should give place 

To catch-the-plackJ 
I dinna like to see your face, 

Nor hear you crack. 

But ye whom social pleasure charms, 
Whose heart the tide of kindness warms, 
Who hold your being on the terms, 

Each aid the others' 
Come to my bowl, cone to my arms, 

My friends, my brv 

But to conclude my lang epistle, 
As my auld pen's worn to the grissle 
Twa lines frae you wad gar me fissle, 

Who am, most fervent. 
While I can either sing or whissle, 

Your friend and servant 



TO THE SAME. 



APRIL 21st, 1785. 

WHILE new-ca'd kye rout at the stake, 
An' pownies reek in pleugh or braik, 
This hour on e'enin's edge I take, 

To own I'm debtor 
To honest-hearted, auld Lapraik, 

For his kind letter. 

Forjesket sair, with weary legs, 
Rattlin' the corn out-owre the rigs, 
Or dealing thro' amang the naigs 

Their ten-hours' bite, 
My awkart muse sair pleads and begs 

I would aa write. 
Thetapetless ramfeezl'd hizzie, 
She's salt at best, and something lazy, 
Q.uo' she, "Ye ken, we've been saebusy, 

This month an' mair, 
Thattrouthmyheadis grown right dizzie 

An' something sair." 

Her dowff excuses pat me mad ; 
" Conscience," saysl,"ye thowlessjadl 
I'll write, an' that a hearty blaud, 

This vera night; 
So dinuaye affront your trade, 

But rhyme it right. 

'* Shall bauld Lapraik, the king a' hearts, 
Tho' mankind were a pack o' cartes, 
Roose you sae weel for your deserts, 

In terms so friendly 



56 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Yetye'U neglect to shaw your parts, 

An' thank him kindly !" 

Sae I gat paper in a blink, 
An' down gaed stumpie in the ink : 
Quoth I, " Before I sleep a wink, 

I vow I'll close it ; 
An' if ye winnamakit clink, 

By jove I'll prose it I' 

4ae I've begun to scrawl, but whether 
In rhyme or prose, or baith thegither, 
Or some botch potch that's rightly neither, 

Let time mak' proof ; 
but I shall scribble down some blether 

Just clean aff-loof. 

My worthy friend, ne'er grudge an' carp, 
Tho ! fortune use you hard an' sharp ; 
Come, kittle up your moorland harp 

Wi' gleesome touch 1 
Ne'er mind how fortune waft an' warp : 
She's but a b-tch. 

She's gien me monie a jirt an' fleg, 
Bin' I could striddle owre a rig ; 
But, by the L— d, tho' I should beg 
Wi' lyart pow, 
I'fl laugh, an' sing, an' shake my leg, 
As lang's I dow 1 

Now comes the sax an' twentieth simmer 
I've 6een the bud upo' the limmer, 
Still persecuted by the limmer 

Frae year to year : 
But yet, despite the kittle kimmer, 

7, Rob, am here. 

Do ye envy the city Gent, 
Behint a kist to lie and sklent, 
Or purse-proud, big wi' cent, per cent. 

And muckle wame, 
In some bit brugh to reuresent 

A Bailie's name ? 

Or is't the paughty feudal Thane, 
Wi' ruffl'd sark an' glancin' ^ane, 
Wha thinks himsel nae sheep shank bane, 

But lordly stalks, 

While caps and bonnets aff are ta'en, 

As by he walks ? 

" O Thou wha gies us each guid gift ! 
Gie me o' wit an' sense a lift, 
Then turn me, if Thou please, adrift, 

Thro' Scotland wide ; 
Wi' cits nor lairds I wadna shift, 

In a' their pride !" 

Were this the charter of our state, 
" On pain o' hell be rich an' great," 
Damnation then would be our fate, 

Beyond remead ; 
But, thauks toHeav'n ! that's no the gate 

We learn c«r creed. 



For thus the royal mandate rau, 
When first the human race began 
" The social, friendly, honest man, 

Whate'erhebe, 
'Tis he fulfils great Nature's plan. 

An' none but he'.- 



O mandate glorious and divine ! 
The ragged followers of the Nine, 
Poor, thoughtless devils ! yet may shine 

In glorious light, 
While sordid sons of Mammon's line 
Are dark as nigbi- 

Tho' here they scrape, an' squeeze, an' growl, 
Their worthless nievefu' of a soul 
May in some future carcase howl, 

The forest's fright ; 
Or in some day-detesting owl 

May shun the light- 

Then may Laprailc and Burns arise, 
To reach their native, kindred skies, 
And sing their pleasures, hopes, an ! joys 
In some mild sphere 
Still closer knit in friendship's tie 

Each passing year. 



TO w. s*****K, 



OCHILTREE. 



May, 1783, 



I GAT your letter, winsome Willie : 
Wi' gratefu' heart I thank you braw!:e ; 
Tho' I maun say't I wad be silly, 
An' unco vain, 
Should I believe my coaxin* billie, 

Your flatteria strain. 

But I'se believe ye kindly meant it, 
I sud be laitli to think ye hinted 
Ironic satire, sjdelin's sklented 

On my poor Musie ; 
Tho' in sic phrasin' terms ye've penn'd it 

I scarce excuse ye. 

My senses wad be in a creel 
Should I but dare a hope to speel 
Wi' Allen or wi' Gilbcrtfield, 

The braes o' fame ; 
Or Fergitssu.i, the writer-chiel 

A deathless name. 

(O FergussonJ thy glorious parts 
111 suited law's dry, musty arts ! 
My curse upon your whunstane hearts, 
Ve Enbrugh Gentry I 
The tythe o' what ye waste at cartas, 

Wad 6tow'd his pactrv | 

Yet when a tale comes i' my head, 
Or lasses gie my heart a screed, 



BURNS' POEMS. 



57 



As whyles they're like to be my deed, 
(O sad disease !) 

I kittie up my rustic rted ; 

It gies me ease. 

Auld Coila now may fidge fu' fain, 
She's gotten Poets o ! her ain, 
Chiels wha their chanters winna hain, 
But tune their lays, 
Till echoes a' resound again 

Her weel-sung praise. 

Nae poet thought her worth his while, 
To set her name in measur'd style ; 
She lay like some unkenn'd-of isle 

Beside New Holland, 
Or whare wild-meeting oceans boil 

Besoutii Magellan. 

Ramsay an' famous Fergusson 
«ed Forth an' Toy a lift aboon ; 
Harrow an' Tweed to monie a tune, 

Owre Scotland rings, 
While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, an' Doon, 
Nae body sings. 

Th' Ulissus, Tiber, Thames, an' Seme, 
Glide sweet in monie a tunefu' line ! 
But Willie, set your fit to mine, 

An cock your crest, 
We'll gar our streams and burnies shine 

Up wi' the best. 

We'll sing auld Coila' s plains an' fells, 
Her moors red-brown wi' heather bells, 
Her banks an' braes, her dens and dells, 

Where glorious Wallace 
Aft bure the gree, as story tells, 

Frae southron billies. 
At Wallace' name what Scottish blood 
But boils up in a spring-tide flood ! 
Oft have our fearless fathers strode 

By Wallace' side, 
Still pressing onward, red-wat-shod, 

Or glorious dy'd. 

O, Sweet are Coila' s haughs an' woods, 
When lintwhites chant amang the buds, 
And jinkin hares, in amorous winds, 
Their loves enjoy, 
While thro' the braes the cushat croods 
With wailfu' cry ! 

Ev'u winter bleak has charms for me 
When winds rave thro' the naked tree ; 
Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree 

Are hoary gray ; 
Or blinding drifts wild-furious flee, 

Dark'ning the day ! 

O Nature! a' thy shows an' forms 
To feeling, pensive hearts nae cnarms 1 
Whether the simmer kinaiy warms, 
Wi' life an* U«ttf, 

Or winter now^s, in gusty storms, 

The lang, dark night t 



The Muse, nae poet ever fand her, 
Till by himsel, he learn'd to wander, 
Adown some trotting burn's meander, 

An' no think lang ; 
O sweet! to stray, an' pensive ponder 

A heart-felt sang! 

The warly race may drudge an' drive, 
Hog-shouther, jundie, stretch, an' strive 
Let me fair Nature's face descrive, 

And I, wi' pleasure, 
Shall let the busy, grumbling hive 
Bum owre their 



Fareweel, " my rhyme-composing brither 1 
We've been owre lang unkenn'd to ither : 
Now let us lay our heads thegither, 

In love fraternal : 
May Envy wallop in a tether, 

Black fiend, infernal I 

While highlandmen hate tolls and taxes ; 
While moorlan' herds like guid fat braxiea : 
While terra firma, on her axis 

Diurnal turns, 
Count on a friend, in faith an' practice, 
In Robert Burns. 



POSTSCRIPT. 

MY memory's no worth a preen ; 
I had amaist forgotten clean, 
Ye bade me write you what they mean 

By this New-IAght,* 
'Bout which our herds sae aft hae been 

Maist like to fight. 

In days when mankind were but callan 
At grammar, logic, an' sic talents, 
They took nae pains their speech to balance, 

Or rules to gie ! 
But spak their thoughts in plain, braid lallans. 

Like you or me. 

In thae auld times, they thought the moon, 
Just like a sai k, or pair o' shoon 
Wore by degrees, till her last roon, 

Gaed past their viewing. 
An' shortly after she was done. 

They gat a new one. 

This past for certain, undisputed ; 
It ne'er cam i' their heads to doubt it, 
Till chiels gat up an' wad confute it, 

An' ca'd it wrang ; 
An' mnckle din there was about it, 

Baith loud and lang. 

Some herds, weel learn'd upo' the beuk, 
Wad threap auld folk the thing misteuk ; 



C 2 



1 See note, page 18. 



5S 



BURNS' POEMS. 



For 'twas the auld moon turn'd a neuk, 
An out o' sight, 

An' backlins-eomin, to the leuk, 

She grew mair bright. 

This was deny'd, it was affirm'd ; 
The herds an' hissels were alarm'd : 
The rev'rend gray-beards rav'd an' storm'd, 

That beardless laddies 
Should think they better were inform'd 

Than their auld daddies. 

Frae less to mair it gaed to sticks ; 
Frae words an' aiths to clours an' nicks ; 
An' monie a fallow gat his licks, 

Wi' hearty crunt ; 
An' some, to learn them for their tricks, 

Were hang'd an' burnt. 

This game was play'd in monie lands, 
An' auld-light caddies bure sic hands, 
That faith the youngsters took the sands 

Wi' nimble shanks, 
The lairds forbade, by strict commands, 

Sic bluidy pranks. 

But new-lr&ht herds gat sic a cowe, 
Folk thought them ruin'd stick-an'-stowe, 
Till now amaist on ev'ry knowe, 

m Ye'llfindaneplac'd; 

An' some, their new-light fair avow, 

Just quite baiefac'd. 

Nae doubt the auld-light flocks are bleatin ; 
Their zealous herds are vex'd an' sweatiu ; 
Mysel, I've even seen them greetin 

Wi' girnin spite, 
To hear the moon sae sadly lie'd on 

By word an' write. 

But shortly they will cowe the louns ! 
Some auld-light herds in neebor towns 
Are mind't, in tilings they ca' balloons, 

To tak a flight, 
An' stay a month amang the moons 

An' see them right. 

Guid observation they will gie them, 
An' when the auldmoon's gaun tolea'e them, 
The hindiuost shaird, they'll fetch it wi' them 

Just i' their pouch, 
An' when the new-light billies see them, 

I think they'll crouch! 

Sae, ye observe that a' this clatter 
Is naething but a " moonshine matter ;" 
But tho' dull prose-folk Latin splatter 

In logic tulzie, 
I hope, we bardies ken seme better 

Than mind sic brulzie. 



EPISTLE TO J. R****** 

ENCLOSING SOME POEMS. 
O ROUGH, rude, ready-witted, R*****, 
The wale o' cockB for fun an' driiikin 



There's mony godly folks are thinkin, 

Your dreams* an' tricks 

Will send you, Korah-like, a-sinkin, 

Straight to auld N ick'f. 



Ye hae sae monie cracks an' cants, 
And in your wicked drunken rants, 
Ye mak a devil o' the saunts, 

An' fill them fou ; 
And then their failings, flaws, an wants.. 

Are a' seen thro'. 

Hypocrisy, in mercy spare it I 
That holy robe, O dinna tear it 
Spare 't for their sakes wha aften wear it, 

The lads in blackl 
But your curst wit, when it comes near it, 

Rives 't aff their back. 

Think, wicked sinner, wha ye're skaithing, 
Its just the blue-gown badge an' claithing 
O' saunts ; tak that, ye lea'e them naething 

To ken them by, 
Frae ony unregenerate heathen 

Like you or I. 

I've sent you home some rhyming ware, 
A' that I bargain'd for an' mair ; 
Sae, when ye hae an hour to spare, 

I will expect 
Yon eang,\ ye'll sen't wi' cannie care, 

And no neglect. 

Tho' faith, sma' heart hae I to sing.' 
My muse dow scarcely spread her wing 1 
I've play'd mysel a bonnie spring, 

An' danc'd my fill ! 
I'd better gane an' sair'd the king, 

At Bunker's Hill. 

'Twas ae night lately in my fun, 
I gaed a roving wi' the gun, 
An' brought upailrickio the grun, 

A bonnie hen, 
And, as the twilight was begun, 

Thought nane wad bee 

The poor wee thing was little hurt : 
I straiket it a wee for sport, 
Ne'er thinkin they wad fash me for't ; 

But, deil-raa-care I 
Somebody tells the poacher-court 

The hale affair. 

Some auld us'd hands had ta'en a note, 
That sic a hen had got a shot ; 
1 was suspected for the plot : 

1 scorn'd to He 
So gat the whissle o' my groat, 

, An' pay't the fee. 

* A certain humorous dream of his wan then mak 
a noise in the country -aide. 

t A song he had promised the Author, 



BURNS' POEMS. 



sa 



But, by my gun o' guns the wa.e, 
An' by my pouther an' my bail, 
An' by my hen, an' by her tail, 

I tow an' swear ! 
The game shall pay o'er moor an' dale, 

For this, niest year. 

As Boon's the clockin-time is by, 
An' the wee pouis begun to cry, 
L — d, I'se hae sportin by and by. 

For my gowd guinea : 
Tho' I should herd the buckskin kye 

For't in Virginia. 

Trowth, they had muckle for to blame ! 
'Twas neither broken wing nor limb, 
But twa-three draps about the wame 

Scarce thro' the feathers ; 
An' baitha yellow George to claim 

An' thole their blethers I 

It pits me ay as mad's a hare ; 
So I can rhyme nor write nae mair ; 
But pennyworths again is fair, 

< When time's expedient: 

Meanwhile I am, respected Sir, 

Your rac*t obedient. 



JOHN BARLEYCORN,* 

A BALLAD„ 
I. 

THERE were three kings into the east, 
Three kings both great and high, 

An' they hae sworn a solemn oath 
John Barleycorn should die. 



II. 



They took a plough and plough'd him down, 

Put clods upon his head, 
And they hae sworn a solemn oath 

John Barleycorn was dead. 

III. 

But the cheerful spring came kindly o» 

And show'ra began to fall ; 
John Barleycorn got up again, 

And sore surprised them all. 

IV. 

The sultry suns cf summer came, 

And he grew thick and strong, 
His head weel arm'd wi' pointed spears, 

That no one should him wrong. 

• This is partly composed on the plan of an old song 
known by the same name. 



The sober autumn enter'd mild, 
When he grew wan and pale ; 

His bendingjoints and drooping head 
Show'd he began to fail. 

VI. 

His colour sicken'd more and more, 

He faded into age ; 
And then his enemies began 

To show their deadly rage 

VII. 

They've ta'en a weapon lang and sharp, 

And cut him by the knee ; 
Then ty'd him fast upon a cart, 

Like a rogue for fcrgerie. 

VIII. 

They laid him down upon his back, 

And cudgell'd him full sore ; 
They hung him up before the storm, 

And turn'd him o'er and o'er. 

IX. 

They fill'd up a darksome pit 

With water to the brim, 
They heaved in John Barleycorn, 

There let him sick or swim. 



They laid him out upon the floor, 

Toworkhi.a farther wo, 
And still as sign of life appear'd, 

They toss'd him to and fro. 

XI. 

They wasted, o'er a scorching flanv 

The marrow of his bones ; 
But a miller us'd him worst of all 

For he crush'd him between two stout*, 

xn. 

And they hae la'en his very heart's blood. 
And drank it round and round ; 

And still tne more and more they drank, 
Their joy did more abound. 

XIII. 

John Barleycorn was a hero bold, 

Ofnoble enterprise, 
For if you do but taste his blood, 

'Twill make your courage ri»e. 

XIV. 

'Twill make a man forget his wo ; 
•Twill heighten all b> »*T» 



BURNS' POEMS. 



'Twill make the widow's heart to sing, 
Tho' the tear were in her eye. 

XV. 

Then.let us toast J i !n barleycorn, 

Each man a glass in hand ; 
And may hie great posterity 

Ne'er fail in old Scotland 1 



A FRAGMENT. 



Tune—" Gillicrankte.' 



I. 



WHEN Guilford good our pilot stood, 

And did our helm thraw, man, 
Ae night, at tea, began a plea, 

Within America, man : 
Then up they gat the maskin-pat, 

And in the sea did jaw, man ; 
An' did nae less, in full congress, 

Than quite refuse our law, man. 

II. 

Then thro' the lakes Montgomery takes, 

I wat he was na slaw, man ; 
Down Lowrie's burn he took a turn, 

And Carle ton did ca', man : 
But yet, what reck, he, at Quebec, 

Montgomery-like did fa', man, 
Wi' sword in hand, before his band, 

Amang his en'mies a', man. 

Ill 

Poor Tammy Gage, within a cage 

Was kept at Boston ha', man ; 
Till Willie Howe took o'er the knowe 

For Philadelphia, man : 
Wi' sword an' gun he thought a sin 

Guid christian blood to draw, man ; 
But at New-York, wi' knife an' fork, 

Sir-loin be hacked sroa', man. 

IV. 

Burgoyne gaed up, like spur an' whip, 

Till Fraser brave did fa', man ; 
Then lost his way, ae misty day, 

In Saratoga sbaw, man, 
Cornwallis fought as lang's he dought, 

An' did the buckskins claw, man ; 
But Clinton's glaive frae rust to save, 

He hung it to the wa', man, 



Then Montague, an' Guilford too, 

Began to fear a fa', man ; 
And Sackville doure, wha stood the stoure, 

The German chief to thraw, man : 



For Paddy Burke, like ony Turk, 

Nae mercy had at a', man ; 
And Charlie Fox threw by the box, 

An' lows'dhis tinkler jaw man. 

VI. 

Then Rockingham took up the game ; 

Till death did on him ca', man ; 
When Shelburne meek held up his cheei, 

Conform to gospel law, man ; 
Saint Stephen's boys, wi' jarring noise, 

They did his measures thraw, man, 
For North an' Fox united stocks, 

An' bore him to the wa', man. 



VII. 

Then clubs an' hearts were Charlie's cartel 

He swept the stakes awa', man, 
Till the diamond's ace, of Indian race, 

Led him a &a.ir faux pas , man : 
The Saxon lads, wi' loud placads, 

On Chatham's Joy did ca', man ; 
An' Scotland drew her pipe an' blew, 

" Up, Willie, waur them a', man l' ' 

VIII. 

Behind the throne 'hen Grenvile'* gone. 

A secret word or twa, man ; 
While slee Dundas arous'd the class 

Be-north the Roman wa', man : 
An' Chatham's wraith, in heavenly graith, 

(Inspired bardies saw man) 
Wi' kindling eyes cry'd, " Willie, rise ! 

Would I hae fear'd them a', man ?" 

IX. 

But, word an' blow, North, Fox, and Co. 

GowfPd Willie like a ba', man, 
Till Suthron raise, and coost their claise 

Behind him in a raw, man ; 
An' Caledon threw by the drone, 

An' did her whittle draw, man ; 
An* swoor fu' rude, thro' dirt an' bloo4 

To make it guid in law man. 

* * * * * 



Tune—" Corn rigs i 
I. 

IT was upon a Lammas night, 
When corn rigs are bonnie, 

Beneath the moon's unclouded light, 
I held awa to Annie : 

The time flew by wi' tentless heed, 
Till 'tween the late and early ; 



BURNS' POEMS. 



WJ «na' persuasions she agreed, 
% j see me thro' the barley. 

II. 

Trie sky was blue, the wind was still, 

The moon was saining clearly ; 
I set her down, wi' right good will, 

Araaug the rigs o' barley : 
I ken't her heart was a' my ain ; 

I lov'd her most sincerely ; 
I kiss'd herowre and owre again 

Amang the rigs o' barley. 

III. 

I lock'd her in my fond embrace ; 

Her heart was beating rarely : 
My blessings on that happy place, 

Amang the rigs o' bai iey ! 
But by the moon and stars so bright, 

Thatshoce that hour so clearly 
She ay shall bless that happy night, 

Amang the rigs o' barley. 

IV. 

I nae been Kyths wi' comrades dear ; 

I hae been merry drinkin ; 
I hae been joyfu' gathrin gear ; 

I hae been happy thinkin : 
But a' the pleasures e'er I saw, 

Tho' three times doubled fairly, 
That happy night was worth them a', 

Amang the rigs o' barley. 

CHORUS. 

Cornrigs, an' barley rigs, 
An' corn rigs are bonnie : 
I'll m' 'er forget that happy night, 
Amang tha rigs wi' Annie. 



SONG. 



COMPOSED IN AUGUST. 



Tune — " Ihad a horse I liadnae mair.' 



I. 



Now westhn winds, and slaught'ring guns 

Bring autumn's pleasant weather ; 
The moorcock springs, on whirring wings, 

Amang the blooming heather ; 
Now waving grain, wide o'er the plain, 

Delights the weary farmer ; 
And the moon shines bright, when I rove at 

To muse upon my charmer. 



II. 



The partridge loves the fruitful fells j 
The plover loves the mountain* ; 



The woodcock haunts the lonely dells 
The soaring hern the fountains : 

Thro' lofty groves the chushat roves, 
The path of man to shun it ; 

The hazel bush o'erhangs the thrush, 
The spreading thorn the linnet. 

III. 

Thus ev'ry kind their pleasure find, 

The savage and the tender ; 
Some social joy, and leagues combine ; 

Some solitary wander : 
Avaunt, away ! the cruel sway, 

Tyrannic man's dominion ; 
The sportsman' joy, the murd'ring cry, 

The flutt'ring gory pinion 1 

IV. 

But Peggy dear, the ev'ning's clear, 

Thick flies thp skimming swallow ; 
The sky is blue, the fields in view, 

All fading-green and yellow : 
Come let us stray our gladsome way, 

And view the charms of nature ; 
Therustlingcorn, the fruited thorn, 

And every happy creature. 



We'll gently walk, and sweetly talk, 

Till the silent moou shine clearly ; 
I'll grasp thy waist, and, fondly prest, 

Swear how I love thee dearly : 
Not vernal show'rs to budding flew'rs, 

Not autumn to the farmer, 
So dear can be as thou to me, 

My fair, my lovely charmer 1 



SONG. 

TUNE—" My Nannie, O." 



BEHIND you hills where Lugar* Howe, 
'Mang moors and mosses many, O, 

The wintry sun the day has clos'd, 
And I'll awa' to Nannie, O. 



II. 



The westlin wind blaws loud an' shrill ; 

The night's baith mairk au' rainy, O ; 
But I'll get my plaid, an' out I'll steal, 

An' owre the hills to Nannie, O. 

III. 

My Nannie's charming, 3weet, an' youn 
Nae artfu' wiles to win ye, O : 

* Originally, Stincher. 



62 



BURNS' POEMS. 



May ill befa' the flattering tongue 
That wad beguile my Nannie, O. 

IV. 

Her face is fair, her heart is true, 
As spotless as she's bonnie, : 

The op'ning gowan, wet wi' dew, 
Nae purer is than Nannie, O. 



A country lad is my degree, 
An' few there be that ken me, O ; 

But what care I how few they be, 
I'm welcome ay to Nannie, O. 

VI. 

My riches a' 's my penny-fee, 
An' I maun guide it cannie, O ; 

But warl's gear ne'er troubles me, 
My thoughts are a' my Nannie, O. 

VII. 

Our auld Guidman delights to view 
His sheep an' kye thrive bonnie, O ; 

But I'm as blythe that hauds his pleugh, 
An' has nae care but Nannie, O. 

VIII 

Ooroe weel,l come wo, I care na by, 
I'll tak what Heav'n will sen' mi, 

Nae ither care in life have I, 
But live, an love my N auras O. 



GREEN GROW THE RASHES, 

A FRAGMENT. 
CHORUS. 



But gie me a canny hour at e'en, 
My arms about my dearie, O ; 

An' warly cares, an' warly men 
May a' gae tapsalteerie. O 1 



Green grow, fjre. 



Green grow the rashes, O .' 
Green grow the rashes, O ! 

3TTi« sweetest hours that e'er I spend, 
Are spent amang tlie lasses, O ! 



THERE'S nought but care on ev'ry han', 

In ev'ry hour that passes, O ; 
What signifies the life o' man, 

An' 'twere na for the lasses, O, 

Green grow, !(<. 



II. 



The warly race may riches chase, 
An' riches still may fly them, O ; 

Aq' tho' at last they catch them fast, 
Their hearts can ne'er enjoy them, O. 
Grten grow, IfC. 



IV. 

For you sae douse, ye sneer at this, 
Ye'er nought but senseless asses, O : 

The wisest man the warl' e'er saw, 
He dearly lov'd the lasses, O. 

Green grow, Ifc. 

V. 

Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears 
Her noblest work she classes, O : 

Her 'prentice han' she try'd on man, 
An' then she made the lasses, O. 

Green grow, tfc 

***** 



TUNE— " Jockey's GreyBreek* 
I. 

AGAIN rejoicing nature sees 

Her robe assume Us vernal hues, 
Her leafy locks wave in the breeze, 

All freshly steep'd in morning dews. 

CHORUS.* 

And maun I still on Menie] doat 

And bear the scorn that's in her e'e .' 
For m's jet black, an' it's like a hawk. 

An' it winna let a body be .' 

II. 

In vain to me the cowslips bls»w, 

In vain to me the vi'lets spring ; 
In vain to me, in glen or shaw, 

The mavis and the liutwhite sing. 

And maun 1 ttth, *, 

III. 

The merry ploughboy cheers his team, 

Wi' joy the tentie seedsman, sta".'«t«, 
But life to me 's a weary dream, 

A dream of ane that never wauks. 

Andmaun Istill, tfc. 

• This chorus is part of a song composed by a gen- 
tleman in Edinburgh, a particular friend of the au- 
thor's. 

t Menie is the common abbreviation of Mariarrmt 



BURNS' POEMS 



G» 



IV. 

The wanton coot the water skims, 
Amang the reeds the duckling cry, 

The stately swan majestic swims, 
And every thing is blest but I, 

And maun I still, t(C. 



V. 



The sheep-herd steeks his faulding slap, 
And owre the moorlands whistles shill, 

Wi' wild, unequal, wandring step 
I met him on the dewy hill. 

And maun I still, tfC. 

VI. 

And when the lark, 'tween light and dark. 

Blythe waukens by the daisy's side, 
And mounts and signs on flittering wings, 

A wo-worn ghaist I hameward glide. 

And maun I still, Sfc. 

VII. 

Come, Winter, with ihine angry howl, 
And raiging bend the naked tree ; 

Thy gloom will soothe my cheerless soul, 
When nature all is sad like me 1 

CHORUS. 

Arid maun I still on Menie doat, 
And bear the scorn that's inher e'e ! 

For it's jet black, an' it's like a hawk, 
An' it winna let a body be,* 



SONG. 

TUNE— "Roslin Castle. 

I. 

THE gloomy night is gath'ring fast, 
Loud roars the wild inconstant blast, 
Yon murky cloud is foul with rain, 
I see it driving o'er the plain ; 
The hunter now has left the moor, 
The scatter'd coveys meet secure, 
Wnile here I wander, prest with care, 
Along the lonely banks of Ayr. 



* We cannot presume to alter any of the poems of 
our bard, and more especially those printed under his 
own direction ; yev.it is to be regretted that this chorus, 
which is not of his own composition , should be attached 
to these fine stanzas, as it perpetually interrupts the 
train of sentiment which the v excite . E . 



II. 



The Autumn mourns her rip'ning corn 
By early Winter's ravage torn ; 
Across her placid, azure sky, 
She sees the scowling tempest fly ; 
Chill runs my blood to hear it rave, 
I think upon the stormy "wave, 
Where many a danger I must dare, 
Far from the bonnie banks of Ayr. 

III. 

'Tis not the surging billow's roar, 
'Tis not that fatal deadly shore ; 
Tho' death in every shape appear, 
The wretched have no more to fear : 
But round my heart the ties are bound, 
That heart transpierc'd with many a wound 
These bleed afresh, those ties I tear, 
To leave the bonnie banks of Ayr. 

IV. 

Farewell, old Coila's hills and dales, 
Her heathy moors and winding vales ; 
The scenes where wretched fancy roves, 
Pursuing past, unhappy loves 1 
Farewell, my friends ! Farewell, my foe»l 
My peace with these, my love with tho»»— 
The bursting tears my heart declare. 
Farewell the bonnie banks of Ayr. 



SONG. 

TUNE—" Guilderoy." 
I. 

FROM thee Eliza, I must go, 

And from my native shore : 
The cruel fates between us throw 

A boundless ocean's roar : 
But boundless oceans, roaring wide, 

Between my love and me, 
They never, never can divide 

My heart and soul from thee. 

II. 

Farewell, farewell, Eliza dear, 

The maid that I adore ! 
A boding voice is in mine ear, 

We part to meet no more 1 
But the last throb that leaves my heart, 

While death stands victor by, 
That throb, Eliza, is thy part, 

And thine the latest sigh I 



64 



BURNS' POEMS. 



THE FAREWELL 



TO THE 
BRETHREN OF ST. JAMES'S LODGE 

TARbOLTON. 

TUNE—" Goodnight, and joy be wi' you a' !" 

I. 

ADIEU, a heart-warm, fond adieu ! 

Dear brothers of the mystic tye .' 
Ye favour'd, ye enlighlen'd few, 

Companions of my social joy I 
Tho' I to foreign lands must hie, 

Pursuing Fortune's slidd'ry ba' 
With melting heart, and brimful eye, 

I'll mind you still, tho' far awa'. 

II. 

Oft have I met your social band, 

And spent the cheerful, festive night ; 
Oft, honour'd with supreme command, 

Presided o'er the sons of light : 
And by that hieroglyphic bright, 

Which none but craftsmen ever saw I 
Strong mem'ry on my heart shall write 

Those happy scenes when far awa.' 

III. 

May freedom, harmony, and love, 

Unite us in the grand design, 
Beneath th' omniscient eye above, 

The glorious architect divine ! 
That you may keep th' unerring line, 

Still rising by the plummet's law, 
Till order bright completely shine, 

Shall be my pray'r when far awa'. 

IV. 

And you farewell ! whose merits claim, 

Justly, that highest badge to wear ! 
Heav'n bless your honour'd, noble name, 

To Masonry and Scotia dear ! 
A last request permit me here, 

When yearly ye assemble a', 
One round, I ask it with a tear, 

To him, the Bard that's far awa. 



SONG. 

TUNE— " Prepare, my dear brethren, to the Tavern 
let's fly." 



No churchman am I for to rail and to write, 
No Btatesmau nor soldier to plot or to fight, 



No sly -man of business contriving a snare, 
For a big-belly 'd bottle's the whole of my care. 

II. 

The peer I don't envy, I give him his bow ; 
I scorn not the peasant, though ever so low ; 
But a club of good fellows, like those that are here, 
And a bottle like this, are my glory and care. 



III. 



Here passes the squire on his brother — his horse ; 
There centum per centum, the cit, with his purse j 
But see you the Crown how it waves in the air, 
There, a big-belly'd bottle still eases my care. 

IV. 

The wife of my bosom, alas ! she did die ; 
For sweet consolation to church I did fly ; 
I found that old Solomr-i proved it fair, 
That a big-belly'd bottle's a cure for all care. 



I once was persuaded a venture to make ; 
A letter inform'd me that all was to wreck ; 
But the pursy old landlord just waddledup stain, 
With a glorious bottle that ended my cares. 

VI. 

" Life's cares they are comforts,"* — a maxim laid 

down 
By thebard, what d'ye call him, that wore the black 

gown ; 
And faith I agree with th' old prig to a hair ; 
For a big-belly'd bottle's a heav'n of care. 

A Stanza added in a Mascn Lodge. 

Then fill up a bumper and make it o'erflow, 
And honours masonic prepare for to throw ; 
May every true brother of the comppss and square 
Have a big-belly'd bottle when harass'd with care. 

WRITTEN IN 

FRIARSCARSE HERMITAGE, 

ON NITI1-SIDE. 

THOU whom chance may hither lead,— 
Be thou clad in russet weed, 
Be thou deckt in silken stole, 
Grave these counsels on thy soul. 

Life is but a day at most, 
Sprung from night, in darkness lost ; 
Hope not sunshine ev'ry hour, 
Fear not clouds will always lower. 

As youth and love with sprightly dance, 
Beneath thy morning star advance, 

* Young's Night Thought*. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Pleasure with her siren air 
May delude the thoughtless pair ; 
Let prudence bless enjoyment's cup, 
Then raptur'd sip, and sip it up. 

A* thy day grows warm and high, 

Life's meridian flaming nigh, 

Dost thou spurn the humble vale ? ■ 

Life's proud summit wouldst thou scale ? 

Check ihy climbing step, elate, 

Evils lurk in felon wait : 

Dangers, eagle-pinion'd, bold, 

Soar around each cliffy hold, 

While cheerful peace, with linnet song, 

Chants the lowly dells among. 
As the shades of ev'ning close, 

Beck'ning thee to long repose ; 

As life itself becomes disease, 

Seek the chimney-neuk of ease. 
There ruminate with sober thought, 

On all thou'st seen, and heard, and wrought ; 

And teach the sportive younkers round, 

Saws of experience, sage and sound. 

Say, man's true, genuine estimate, 

The grand criterion of his fate, 

Is not, Art thou so high or low ? 

Did thy fortune ebb or flow ? 

Did many talents gild thy span ? 

Or frugal nature grudge thee one ? 

Tell them, and press it on their mind, 

As thou thyself must shortly find, 

The smile or frown of awful Heav'n 

To virtue or to vice is giv'n. 

Say, to be just, and kind, and wise, 

There solid self-enjoyment lies ; 

That foolish, selfish, faithless ways, 

Lead to the wretched, vile, and base. 

Thus resign'd and quiet, creep 
To the bed of lasting sleep ; 
Sleep, whence thou shalt ne'er awake, 
Night, where dawn shall never break, 
Till future life, future no more, 
To light and joy the good restore, 
To light and joy unknown before. 

Stranger, go ! Heav'n be thy guide 1 
Q,uoth the beadsman of Nlth-side. 



ODE, 

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF 



MRS. 



-OF- 



DWELLER in yon dungeon dark, 
Hangman of creation ! mark 
Who in widow-weeds appears, 
Laden with«uhouour'd years, 
Noosing with care a bursting purse, 
Baited with many a deadly curse 1 



STROPHE. 

View the wither'd beldam's face — 
Can thy keen inspection trace 
Aught of humanity's sweet melting grace ! 
Note that eye, 'tis rheum o'erflows, 
Pity's flood there never rose. 
See those hands, ne'er stretch'd to save, 
Hands that took — but never gave. 
Keeper of Mammon's iron chest 
Lo, there she goes, unpitied and unbleat 
She goes, but not to realms of everlasting tut I 

ANTISTROPHE. 

Plunderer of armies, lift thine eyes, 
(A while forbear, ye tort 'ring fiends,) 
Seest thou whose step unwilling hither benda.) 

No fallen angel, hurl'd from upper skiee ; 
'Tisthy trusty quondam mate, 
Dcyom'd to share thy fiery fate, 

She, tardy, hell-ward plies. 

EPODE. 

And are they of no more avail, 
Ten thousand glitt'ring pounds a year? 

In other worlds can Mammon fail, 
Omnipotent as he is here ? 
O, bitter mock'ry of the pompous bier, 
While down the wretched vital part is driy'n I 

The cave-lodg'd beggar, with a conscience clear, 
Expires in rags, unknown, and goes to Hear'n. 



ELEGY 



Capt. MATTHEW HENDERSON, 

A GENTLEMAN WHO HELD THE PATENT 

FOR HIS HONOURS IMMEDIATELY 

FROM ALMIGHTY GOD. 

But now his radient course is run, 
For Mathew's course was bright ; 

His soul was like the glorious sua, 
A matchless, Heav'nly Light ! 

O DEATH ! thou tyrant fell and bloody ! 
The meikle devil wi' a woodie 
Haurl thee hame to his black smiddie, 

O'er hurcheon hides, 
And like stock-fish come o'er his studdie 

Wi' thy auld sides ? 

He's gane, he's gaen ! he's frae us torn, 
The ae best fellow e'er was born ! 
Thee, Matthew, nature's sel shall mourn 

By wood and wild, 
Where, haply, pity strays forlorn, 

Frae man exil'd 



6o 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Ye hills, near neebors o' the starns, 
That proudly cock your cresting cairns ! 
Ye cliffs, the haunts of sailing yearns, 

Where echo slumbers 1 
Come join, ye Nature's sturdiest bairns, 

My wailing numbers. 

Mourn, ilka grove the cushat kens ! 
Ye haz'lly shaws and briery dens 1 
Ye burns, whimplin down your glens, 

Wi' toddlindin, 
Or foaming Strang, wi' hasty stens, 

Frae lin to tin. 

Mourn little harebells o'er the lee ; 
Ye stately foxgloves fair to see ; 
Ye woodbines hanging bonnilie, 

In scented bow'rs ; 
Ye roses on your thorny tree, 

The first o* flow Vs. 

At dawn, when ev'ry grassy blade 
Droops with a diamond at his head, 
At ev'n, when beans their fragrance shed, 

1' th' rustling gale, 
Ye maukins whiddin thro' the glade, 

Come join my wail. 

Mourn, ye wee songsters o' the wood ; 
Ye grouse that crap the heather bud ; 
Ye curlews calling thro' a clud ; 

Ye whistling plover ; 
And mourn, ye whirring pairick brood ; 

He's gane for ever ! 

Mourn, sc Dty coots, and speckled teals, 
Ye fisher herons, watching eels ; 
Ye duck and drake, wi' airy wheels 

Circling the lake ; 
Ye bitterns, till the quagmire reels, 

Rair for his sake. 

Mourn, clam'ring craiks at close o' day, 
'Mang fields o' flow 'ring clover gay ; 
And when ye wing your annual way 

Frae our cauld shore, 
Tellthae far warlds, wha lies in clay, 

Wham we deplore. 

Ye houlets, frae your ivy bowV, 
In some auld tree, or eldritch tow'r, 
What lime the moon, wi' silent glow'r, 

Sets up her horn, 
Wail thro' the dreary midnight hour 

Till waukrife morn ! 

O rivers, forests, hills, and plains ! 
Oft have ye heard my canty strains : 
But now, what else for me remains 

But tales of wo ; 
And frae my een the drapping rains 

Maun ever flow. 

Mourn, spring, thou darling of the year ! 
itk cowslip cup shall keep a tear : 
Thou, simmer, while each corny spear 

Shoots up its head. 



Thy gay, green flow'ry tresses shear, 

For him that's dead \ 

Thou, autumn, wi' thy yellow hair, 
In grid' thy swallow mantle tear! 
Thou, winter, burling thro' the air 

The roaring blast, 
Wide o'er the naked world declare 

The worth we've lost 1 

Mourn him, thou sun, gieat source of light'. 
Mourn, empress of the silent night ! 
And you, ye twinkling st amies bright, 

My Matthew mourn ! 
For thro' your orbs he'sta'en his flight. 
Ne'er to return. 

O Henderson ; the man I the brother t 



And art thou 



gon 



d gone for ever 1 



And hast thou crost that unknown river, 

Life's dreary bound ! 
Like thee where shall I find another, 

The world around? 

Go to your scuiptur'd tombs, yegreat, 
In a' the tinsel trash o' state ! 
But by the honest turf I'll wait, 

Thou man of worth I 
And weep the ae best fellow's fate 

E'er lay in earti. 



THE EPITAPH. 

STOP, passenger ! my story's brief ; 

And truth I shall relate, man ; 
I tell nae common tale o' grief, 

For Matthew was a great man. 

If thou uncommon merit hast, 
Yetspurn'd at fortune's door, man ; 

A look of pity hither cast, 

For Matthew was a poor man. 

If thou a noble sodger art, 

Thatpassest by this grave, man, 
There moulders here agallan'. heart ; 

For Matthew was a brave man. 

If thou on men, their works and way3, 
Canst throw uncommon light, man ; 

Here lies wha weel had won thy praise, 
For Matthew was a bright man. 

If thou at friendship's sacred ca 5 
Wad life itself resign, man ; 

Thy sympathetic tear ftfeun fa,' 
For Matthew was a kind man t 

If thou art staunch without a slain, 
Like the unchanging blue, man ; 

This was a kinsman o' thy ain. 
For Matthew was a true man. 

If thou hast wit, and fun, and tire 
And ne'er guid wine did fear, man ; 



BURNS' POEMS. 



67 



This was thy hillie, dam, and sire, 
For Matthew was a queer man. 

If ony whiggish whin^insot, 

To blame poor Matthew dare, man 
May dool and sorrow be his lot, 

For Matthew was a rare man. 



LAMENT 

OF 

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, 

ON THE APPROACH OF SPRING. 

Now nature hangs her mantle greea 

On every blooming tree, 
And spreads her sheets o' daisies white 

Out o'er the grassy lea : 
Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams, 

Andglads the azure skies ; 
But nought can glad the weary wight 

That fast in durance lies. 

Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn, 

Aloft oc dewy wing ; 
The merle, in his noontide bow'r 

Makes woodland echoes ring ; 
The mavis mild, wi' many a note, 

Sings drowsy day to rest : 
In love and freedom they rejoice, 

Wi' care nor thrall opprest. 

Now blooms the lily by the bank, 

The primrose d6wn the brae ; 
The hawthorn 's budding In the glen, 

And milk-white is the slae ; 
The meanest hind in fair Scotland 

May rove their sweets amang ; 
But I, the Q,ueen of a' Scotland, 

Maun lie in prison Strang. 

I was the dueen o' bonnie France, 

Where happy I hae been ; 
Fu' lightly raise I in the morn, 

Aa blythe lay down at e'en : 
Aud I'm the sovereign of Scotland, 

And mony a traitor there ; 
Yet here I lie in foreigu bands, 

And never ending care. 

But as for thee, thou false woman, 

My sister and my fae, 
Grim vengeance, yet shall whet a sword 

That thi o' thy soui shall gae : 
The weeping blood in woman's breast 

Was never known to thee ; 
North' balm that draps on wounds of wo 

Frae woman's p' tying e'e. 

My son ! my son ! may kinder Btara 
Upon thy fortune shine « 



And may those pleasures gild thy reign, 
That ne'er wad blink on mine I 

God keep thee frae thy mother's faee, 
Or turn their hearts to thee : 

And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend, 
Remember him for me ! 

O ! soon, to me, may summer-suns 

Nae mair light up the morn ! 
Nae mair, to me, the autumn winds 

Wave o'er the yellow corn ! 
And in the narrow house o' death 

Let winter round me rave ; 
And the next flow'rs that deck the spring, 

Bloom on my peaceful grave ! 



TO ROBERT GRAHAM, Esq., 

OF FINTRA. 

LATE crippl'd of an arm, and now a leg, 
About to beg apnss for leave to beg ; 
Dull, listless, teas'd, dejected, and deprest, 
(Nature is adverse to a cripple's rest :) 
Will generous GraJiam list to his Poet's wail ? 
(It soothes poor misery, heark'ning to her tale,) 
And hear him curse the light he first survey'd, 
And doubly curse the Iickless rhyming trade ? 

Thou, Nature, partial Nature, I arraign ; 
Of thy caprice maternal I compla.n. 
The lion and the bull thy care have found, 
One shakes the forests, and one spurns the ground ; 
Thou giv'st the ass his hide, the snail his shell, 

Th' envenom'd wasp, victorious guards his cell. 

Thy minions, kings, defend, control, devour, 

In all th' omnipotence of rule and power. 

Foxes and statesmen, subtile wiles ensure ; 
The cit and polecat stink, and are secure. 
Toads with their poison, doctors with their drug. 
The priest and hedgehog in their robes are snug. 
Ev'n silly woman has her warlike arts, 
Her tongue and eyes, her dreaded spear and darts. 

But Oh ! thou bitter step-mother and hard, 
To thy poor, fenceless, naked child— the Bard 1 
A thing unteachable in world's skill, 
And half a idiot too, more helpless still. 
No heels to bear him from the op'ning dun ; 
No claws to dig, his hated sight to shun ; 
No horns, but those by luckless Hymen worn, 
And those, alas ! not Amalthea's horn ; 
No nerves olfact'ry, Mammon's trusty cur 
Clad in rich dulness' comfortable fur, 
In naked feeling, and in aching pride, 
He bears th' unbroken blast from ev'ry side : 
Vampyre booksellers drain him to the heart, 
And scorpion critics careless venom dart. 

Critics — appall'd I venture on the name, 
Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame : 
Bloody dissectors, worse than ten Monroes ; 
He hacks to teach, they mangle to expose. 

His heart by causeless, wanton malice wrung. 
By blockheads' daring into madness stung ; 



BURNS' POEMS 



His well-won bays, than life itself more dear, 
By miscreants torn, who ne'er one sprig must wear : 
Foil'd, bleeding, tortur'd, in the unequal strife 
The hapless poet flounders on thro' life. 

ill fled each hope that once his bosom fir'd, 
And fled each muse that glorious onceinspir'd, 
Low sunk in squalid, unprotected age, 
Dead, even resentment, for his injur'd page, 
He heeds or feels no more the ruthless critic's rage I 

So, by some hedge, the generous steed deceas'd, 
i.' or half-starv'd snarling curs a dainty feast : 
By toil and famine wore to skin and bone, 
Lies senseless of each tugging bitch's son. 

O dulness ! portion ofthe truly blest 1 
Calm shelter'd haven of eternal rest ! 
Thy sons ne'er madden in the fierce extremes 
Of fortune's polar frost, or torrid beams. 
If mantling high she fills the golden cup, 
With sober selfish ease they sip it up : 
Conscious the bounteous meed they well deserve, 
They only wonder " some folks" do not starve. 
The grave, sage hern thus easy picks his frog, 
And thinks the mallard a sad, worthless dog. 
When disappointment snaps theclue of hope, 
And thro' disastrous night they darkling grope, 
With deaf endurance sluggishly they bear, 
And just couclude that " fools are fortune's care." 
So, heavy, passive to the tempest's shocks, 
Strong on the sign-post stands the stupid ox. 

Not so the idle muses' mad-cap train, 
Not such the workings of their moon-struck brain : 
In equanimity they never dwell, 
By turns in soaring heav'n, or "vaulted hell. 

I dread thee, fate, relentless and severe, 
With all a poet's, husband's, father's fear ! 
Already one strong hold of hope is lost, 
Glencairn, the truly noble, lies in dust ; 
(Fled, like the sun eclips'd as noon appears, 
And left us darkling in a world of tears :) 
! hear my ardent, grateful, selfish pray'r 
Fintra, my other stay, long bless and spare ! 
Thro' a long life his hopes and wishes crown ; 
And bright in cloudless skies his sun go down ! 
May bliss domestic smooth his private path ; 
Give energy to life ; and soothe his latest breath, 
With many a filial tear circling the bed of death ! 



LAMENT 

FOR 
JAMES, EARL OF GLENCAIRN. 

THE wind blew hollow frae the hills, 

By fits the sun's departing beam 
Look'd on the fading yellow woods 

That wav'd o'er Lugar's winding stream ; 
Beneath a craigy steep, a bard, 

Laden with years and meikle pain, 



In loud lament bewail'd his lord, 
Whom death had all untimely ta'en. 

He lean'd him to an ancient aik, 

Whose trunk was mould'ringdown with year* ; 
His locks were bleached white w.' time 1 

His hoary cheek was wet wi' tears ! 
And as he touch'd his trembling harp, 

And as he tun'd his doleful sang, 
The winds, lamenting thro' their caves, 

To echo bore the notes alang. 

" Ye scatter'd birds that faintly sing, 

The reliques of the vernal quire ! 
Ye woods that shed on a' the winds 

The honours of the aged year ! 
A few short months, and glad and gay, 

Again ye'll charm the ear and e'e ; 
Butnotcht in all revolving time 

Can gladness bring again to me. 

" I am a bending aged tree 

That long has stood the wind and rain ; 
But now has come a cruel blast, 

And my last hald of earth is gane : 
Nae leaf o' mine shall greet the spring, 

Nae simmer sun exalt my bloom ; 
But I maim lie before the storm, 

And ithers plant them in my room. 

" I've seen sae mony changefu' years, 

On earth 1 am a stranger grown ; 
I wander in the ways of men, 

Alike unknowing and unknown : 
Unheard, unpitied, unreliev'd, 

I bear alane my lade o' care, 
Fo" silent, low, on beds of dust, 

Lie a' that would my sorrows share. 

"And list (the sum of a' my griefs!) 

My noble master lies in clay ; 
The flow'r amang our barons bold, 

His country's pride, his country's stay : 
In weary being now I pine, 

For a' the life of life is dead, 
And hope has left my aged ken, 

On forward wing for ever fled. 

" Awake thy last sad voice, my harp ! 

The voice of wo and wild despair ; 
Awake, resound thy latest lay, 

Then sleep in silence evermair 1 
And thou, my last, best, only friend 

That fillest an untimely tomb, 
Accept this tribute from the bard 

Thou brought from fortune's mirkest gloom. 

"In poverty's low, barren vale, 

Thick mists, obscure, involv'd me round ; 
Though oft I turn'd the wistful eye, 

Nae ray of fame was to be found : 
Thou found'st me, like the morning sun 

That melts the fogs in liquid air, 
The friendless bard and rustic song, 

Became alike tby fostering care. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



"O I why has worth bo short a date ? 

While villains ripen gray with time ! 
Must thou, the noble, gen'rous, great, 

Fall in bold manhood's hardy prime ! 
Why did I live to see that day ? 

A day to me sofullof wo! 
O ! had I met the mortal shaft 

Which laid my benefactor low 1 

M The bridegroom may forget the bride 

Was mr.de his wedded wife yestreen 
The monarch may forget the crown 

That on his head an hour has been ; 
The mother may forget the child 

That smiles sae sweetly on her knee ; 
But I'll remember thee, Glencairn, 

Aud a' that thou hast done for me 1" 



LINES SENT 

TO SIR JOHN WHITEFOORD, 

OF WHITEFOORD, BART., 

WITH THE FOREGOING POEM. 

THOU, who thy honour a3 thy God rever'st, 

Who, save thy 7>iind's reproach, nought earthly 

fear'st. 
To thee this votive offering I impart, 
The tearfu' tribute of a broken heart. 
The friend thou valued'st, I the patron lov'd ; 
His worth, his honour, all the world approv'd. 
We'll mourn till we too go as he has gone, 
And tread the dreary path to that dark world 

unknown. 



TAM 0' SHANTER. 
A TALE. 

Of Brownyis and of Bogilis is this Buke. 

GAWIN DOUGLAS. 

WHEN chapman billies leave the street, 
And drouthy neebors, neebors meet, 
As market-days are wearing late, 
An' folk begin to take the gate ; 
While we sit bousing at the nappy, 
Au' gettin fou and unco happy, 
We think na on the lau;; Scots miles, 
The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles, 
That lie between us and our hame, 
Where sits our sulky sullen dame, 
Gathering her brows like gathering storm, 
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm. 

This truth fand honest Tarn o' Shanter, 
As he frae Ayr, ae night did canter, 



(Auld Ayr whom ne'er a town surpasses, 
For honest men and bonny lasses ) 

O Tarn! had'st thou but been sae wiss, 
As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice ; 
She tauld thee weel thou was a skell"-! 
A blethering, blustering, drunk belli 
That frae November till October, 
Ae market-day thou was nae sober, 
That ilka melder, wi' the miller, 
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller ; 
That ev'ry naig was ca'd a shoe on, 
The smith and thee gat roaring fou on, 
That at the L — d's house, ev'non Sundaj. 
Thou drank wi' Kirton Jean till Monday. 
She prophesy'd, that late or soon, 
Thou would be found deepdrown'd in DoOTi , 
Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk, 
ByAlloway's auld haunted kirk. 

Ah, gentle dames ! it gars me greet, 
To think how mony counsels sweet 
How mony lengthen'd sage advices, 
The husband frae the wife despises ! 

But to our tale : Ae market night 
Tarn had got planted unco right; 
Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely 
Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely J 
And at his elbow, souter Johnny, 
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony ; 
Tarn lo'ed him like a vera brither ; 
They had been fou for weeks thegither, 
The night drave on wi' sangs an' clatter } 
And ay the ale wad growing better : 
The landlady and Tarn grew gracious ; 
Wi' favours, secret, sweet, and precious : 
The souter tauld his queerest stories ; 
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus: 
The slorm without might rair and rustle, 
Tarn did na mind the storm a whistle. 



Care, mad to see a man sae happy, 
E'en drown'd himself amang the nappy ; 
As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure, 
The minutes wing'd their way wi' pleasure! 
Kings may be blest, but Tarn was glorious; 
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious. 

But pleasures are like poppies spread, 
You seize the fiow'r, its bloom is shed ; 
Or like the snow-falls in the river, 
A moment white — then melts forever J 
Or like the borealis race, 
That flit ere you can point their place J 
Or like the rainbow's lovely form 
Evanishing amid the storm, — 
Nae man can tether time or tide. 
The hour approaches Tarn maun ride ; 
Thai hour, o' night's black arch the key-stand. 
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in ; 
And sic a night he taks the road in, 
As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in. 

The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last J 
The rattling shuw'rs rose on the blast ; 



70 



BURNS' POEMS. 



The speedy gleams the darkness swallow'd ; 
Loud, deep and lang the thunder bellow'd : 
That night, a child might understand, 
The deil had business on his hand. 

Weel mounted on his gray mare, Meg, 
A better never lifted leg, 
Tarn skilpit on thro' dub and mire, 
Despising wind, and rain and fire ; 
Whiles holding fast his guid blue bonnet : 
Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet 
Whiles glow'ring round wi' prudent cares, 
Lest bogles catch him unawares ; 
Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh, 
Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry. — 

By this time he was cross the ford, 
Where in the snaw the chapman smoor'd ; 
And past the birks and meikle stane, 
Where drunken Charlie brak's neck-bane ; 
And thro' the whins, and by the cairn, 
Whare hunters fand the murder'd bairn ; 
And near the thorn, aboon the well, 
Where Mungo's mither hang'd hersel. — 
Before him Doon pours all his floods ; 
The doubling storm roars thro' the woods ! 
The lightning flash from pole to pole ; 
Near and more near the thunders roll ; 
When, glimmering thro' the groaning trees, 
Kirk-Alloway seem'd in a bleeze ; 
Thro' ilka bore the beams were glancing ; 
And loud resounded mirth and dancing.— 

Inspiring bold John Barleycorn ! 
What dangers thou canst make us scorn ! 
Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil ; 
Wi' usquabae we'll face the devil !— 
The swats sae ream'd in Tammie's noddle, 
Fair play, he car'd na deils a boddle. 
But Maggie stood right sairastonish'd, 
Till, by the heel and hand admonish'd, 
She ventur'd forward on the light ; 
And, vow ! Tain saw an unco sight ! 
Warlocks and witches in a dance ; 
Nae cotillon brent new frae France, 
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels, 
Put life an mettle in their heels. 
A winnock-bunker in the east, 
There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast ; 
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large, 
To gie them music was his charge : 
He serew'd the pipes and gait them skirl, 
Till roof and rafters a' did dirl.— 
Coffins stood round like open presses, 
That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses ; 
And by some devilish canlraip slight, 
Each in its cauld hand held a light, — 
By which heroic 7'a/7i was able 
To note upon the haly table, 
A murderer's oanes in gibbet aims ; 
Twaspan-lang, wee, unchristen'd bairns ; 
A thief, new cutted frae a rape, 
Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape ; 
Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red-rusted ; 
Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted ; 
A garter, which ababe had strangled ; 



A knife, a father's throat had mangled, 
Whom his ain son o' life bereft, 
The gray hairs yet stack to the heft ; 
Wi' mair o'horrible and awfu', 
Which ev'n to name wad be uulawfu'. 

As Tammie glowr'd, amaz'd, and cunoas, 
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious, 
The piper loud and louder blew ; 
The dancers quick and quicker flew ; 
They reel'd, they set, they cross'd, they cleekit^ 
Till ilka carlin swat and reekit, 
And coost her duddies to the wark, 
And linket at it in her sark ! 

Now Tarn O Tarn ! had they been queans 
A' plump and strapping, in their teens ; 
Their sarks instead o' creeshie flannen, 
Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linen 1 
These breeks o' mine, my only pair, 
That ance were plush, o' guid blue hair, 
I wad hae gi'en them aft" my hurdies, 
For ae blink o' the bonnie burdies ! 

But wither'd beldams, auld and droll, 
Rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal, 
Lowping an' flinging on a Crnmmock, 
I wonder dinna turn thy stomach. 

But Tarn kenn'd what was what fu' brawile, 
There was ae winsome wench and walie, 
That night inlisted in the core, 
(Lang after kenn'd on Carick shore ! 
For mony a beast to dead she shot, 
And perish'd mony a bonnie boat, 
And shook baith meikle corn and bear, 
And kept the country-side in fear,) 
Her cuttie sark, o' Paisly ham, 
That while a lassie she had worn, 
In longitude tho' sorely scanty, 
It was her best, and she was vauntie. — 
Ah ! little kenn'd thy reverend grannie. 
That sark she coft for her wee Nannie, 
Wi' twa pund Scots ('twas a' her riches,) 
Wad ever grac'd a dance of witches I 

But here my muse her wing maun cour; 
Sic flights are far beyond herpow'r ; 
To sing how Nannie lap and flang, 
(A souple jade she was and Strang) 
And how Tarn stood, like ane tewitch'd, 
And thought his very e'en enrich'd: 
Even Satan glowr'd, and fidg'd fu' fain, 
And hotch'd and blew wi' might and main : 
Till first ae caper, syne anither, 
Tarn tint his reason a' thegither, 
And roars out, " Weel done, CuttysarkI" 
And in an instant all was dark : 
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied 
When out the hellish legion sallied. 

Asbeesbizz outwi' angry fyke, 
When plundering herds assail their byke. 
As open pussie's mortal foes, 
When, pop ! she starts before their nose ; 
As eager runs the market-crowd, 
When, " Catch the thief I" resounds aloud: 



BURNS' POEMS. 



71 



So Maggie runs, the witches follow, 

Wi' mony an eldritch skreech and halloo. 

Ah Tarn ! ah, Tarn! thou'll get thy fairin I 
In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin ! 
In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin ! 
Kate soon will be a wofu' woman ! 
Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg, 
And win the key-stane* of the brig ; 
There at them thou thy tail may toss, 
A runningstream they dare na cross. 
But ere the key-stane she could make, 
The fient a tail she had to shake ! 
For Nannie, far before the rest, 
Hard upon noble Maggie prest, 
And flew at Tarn wi' furious ettle ; 
But little wist she Maggie's mettle — 
Ae springbrought off her master hale, 
But left behind her ain gray tail : 
The carlin claught her by the rump, 
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump. 

Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read, 
Ilk man and mother's son, tak heed ; 
Whene'er to drink you are inclin'd, 
Orcutty-sarksrun in your mind, 
Think, ye may buy the joys o'er dear, 
Remember Tarn o' Shanter's mare. 



ON SEEING A WOUNDED HARE 
LIMP BY ME, 

WHICH A FELLOW HAD JUST SHOT AT. 

INHUMAN man ! curse on thy barb'rous art, 
And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye ; 
May never pity soothe thee with a sigh, 

Nor ever pleasure glad tliy cruel heart I 

Go live, poor wanderer of the wood and field, 
The bitter little that of life remains : 
No more the thickening brakes and verdant plains, 

To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield. 

Seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted rest, 
No more of rest, but now thy dying bed ! 
The sheltering rushes whistling o'er thy head, 

The cold earth with thy bloody bosom prest, 

Oft as by winding Nith, I, musing, wait 
The sober eve, or hail the cheerful dawn, 
I'llmis3 thee sporting o'er the dewy lawn, 

And curse the ruffian's aim, and mourn thy hapless 
fate. 



* It is a well-known fact that witches, or any evil 
spirits, have no power to follow a poor wight any far- 
ther than the middle of the next running stream. — It 
may be proper likewise to mention to the benighted 
traveller, that when he falls in with bogles, whatever 
danger may be in his going forward, there is much 
more haiard in turning back. 



ADDREHS 

TO THE SHADE OF THOMSON. 

ON CROWNING HIS BUST AT EDNAM, ROX- 
BURGHSHIRE, WITH BAYS. 

WHILE virgin Spring, by Eden's flood, 

Unfolds her tender mantle green, 
Or pranks the sod in frolic mood 

Or tunes Eolian strains between : 

While Summer with a matron grace 

Retreats to Dayburgh's cooling shade, 
Yet oft, delighted, stops, to trace 

The progress of the spiky blade ; 

While Autumn, benefactor kind, 

By Tweed erects his aged head, 
And sees, with self-approving mind, 

Each creature on his bounty fed : 

While maniac Winter rages o'er 
The hills whence classic Yarrow flows, 

Rousing the turbid torrent's roar, 
Or sweeping, wild, a waste of snows ; 

So long, sweet Poet of the year, 

Shall bloom that wreath thou well has won J 
While Scotia, with exulting tear, 
. Proclaims that Thomson was her son, 



EPITAPHS, 

&c. 

ON A CELEBRATED RULING ELDER. 



HERE souter **** in death does sleep ; 

To h-11, if he's gane thither, 
Satan, gie him thy gear to keep, 

He'll haud it weel thegither. 



ON A NOISY POLEMIC. 

Below thir stanes lie Jamie's banes : 

O death, it's my opinion, 
Thou ne'er took such a bleth'rin b-tch, 

Into thy dark dominion 1 



ON WEE JOHNIE. 

Hie jacet wee Johnie. 



WHOE'ER thou art, O reader, kner 
That death has murier'd Johnie I 



72 



BURNS' POEMS. 



An' here hia body lies fu' low- 
For gaul he ne'er had ony. 



FOR THE AUTHOR'S FATHER. 

O YE, whose cheek the tear of pity stains, 

Draw near with pious rev'rence and attend ! 
Here lie the loving husband's dear remains, 

The tender father, and the gen'rous friend, 
The pitying heart that felt for human wo ; 

The dauntless heart that feared no human pride : 
The friend of man, to vice alone a foe ; 

" Forev'nhis failings lean'd to virtue's side."* 



FOR R. A. ESQ.. 

Know thou, O stranger to the fame 
Of this much lov'd, much honour'd name ; 
(For none that knew him need be told) 
A warmer heart death ne'er made cold. 



FOR G. H. ESQ.. 

{ E poor man weeps — here G n sleeps, 

Whom canting wretches blam'd ; 
with such as he, wher'er he be, 
May I be sav'd or damn'd! 



A BARD'S EPITAPH. 

Is there a whim-inspired fool, 
Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule, 
Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool, 

Let him draw near ; 
And owre this grassy heap sing dool, 

And drap a tear. 

Is there a bard of rustic song, 
Who, noteless, Sveals the crowds among, 
That weekly this area throng, 

O pass not by ! 
But with a frater-feeling strong, 

Here, heave a sigh. 

Is there a man, whose judgment clear, 
Can others teach the course to steer, 
Yet runs, himself, life's mad career, 

Wild as the wave ; 
Here pause— and, thro' the startling tear, 

Survey this grave. 

This poor inhabitant below 
Was quick to learn and wise to know, 
And keenly lei', '.he friendly glow, 

And softer flame, 
But thoughtless follies laid him low, 

Andstain'd his name ! 

* Goldsmith. 



Reader, attend— whether thy aoul 
Soars fancy's flights beyond the pole, 
Or darkling bruds this earthly hole, 

In low pursuit ; 
Know, prudent, cautious, self-control, 

Is wisdom's root. 



ON THE LATE 

capt. grose's peregrinations 
through scotland 

COLLECTING THE ANTIQUITIES OF THAT 
KINGDOM. 

HEAR, Land o' Cakes, and brither Scots, 
Frae Maidenkirkto Jobnie Groat's ; 
If there's a hole in a' your coats, 

I rede you tent it : 
A chield's amang you taking notes, 

And, faith, he'll prent it. 



If in your bounds ye chance to light 
Upon a fine, fat, fodgel wight, 
O' stature short, but genius bright, 

That's he, mark 
And vow ! he has an unco slight 

O' cauk and keel 



By some auld, houlet-haunted biggin,* 
Or kirk deserted by its riggin, 
It's ten to ane ye'll find him snug in 

Some eldritch part, 
Wi' deils, they say, L— d save's 1 colleaguin 

At some black art. — 

Ilk ghaist that haunts auld ha' or chamer, 
Ye gipsy-gang that deal in glamor, 
And you deep read in hell's black grammar, 

Wariocks and witches ; 
Ye'll quake at his conjuring hammer, 

Ye midnight b e« , 

It's tauld he was a sodger bred, 
And ane wad rather fa'n than fled ; 
But now he's quat the spurtle blade, 

And dog-skin wallet, 
And ta'en the— Antiquarian trade, 

I think they call it. 

He has a fouth o' auld nick-nackets : 
Rusty aim caps and jinglin jackets, t 
Wad haud the Lothiaus three in tackets, 

A towmont guid ; 
Andparritch-pats, and auld saut-backets, 

Before the Flood. 

Of Eve's first fire he haB a cinder ; 
Auld Tubal Cain's fire-shool and fender ; 

* Vide his Antiquities of Scotland. 
t Vide his Treaties on Ancient Armour and 
pons. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



76 



Thai which distinguished the gender 

O ' Balaam's ass ; 

▲ broom-stick o' the witch of Endor, 

Weel shod wi' brass. 

Forbye, he'll shape you aff, fu' gleg, 
The cut of Adam's philibeg ; 
The knife that nicket Abel's craig 

He'll prove you fully, 
It was a faulding jocteleg, 

Or lang-kail gullie.— 

But wad ye see him in his glee, 
For meikle glee and fun has he, 
Then set him down, and twa or three 

Guid fellows wi' him ; 
And port, O port ! shine thou a wee, 

And then ye'll see him 1 

Now, by the pow 'rs o' verse and prose ! 
Thou art a dainty chield, O Grose ! — 
Whae'er o' thee shall ill suppose, 

They sair misca' thee ; 
I'd take the rascal by the nose, 

Wad say, Shamefa' thee. 



TO MISS CRUIKSHANKS, 

A VERY YOUNG LADY. 

SRITTEN ON THE BLANK LEAF OF A BOOK, 
PRESENTED TO HERBY THE AUTHOR. 

BEAUTEOUS rose-bud, young and gay, 
Blooming on thy early May, 
Never may'st thou, lovely flow'r, 
Chilly shrink in sleety show'r ! 
NeTer Boveas' hoary path, 
Never Emus' pois 'nous breath, 
Never baleful steller lights, 
Taint thee with untimely blights ! 
Never, never reptile thief 
Riot on thy virgin leaf ! 
Nor even Sol too fiercely view 
Thy bosom, blushing still with dew 1 

May'st thou long, sweet crimson gem, 
Richly deck thy native stem ; 
Till some ev'ning, sober, calm, 
Dropping dews, and breathing balm, 
While all around the woodland rings, 
And ev'ry bird the requiem sings ; 
Thou amid the dirgeful sound, 
Shed thy dying honours round, 
And resign to parent earth 
The loveliest form she e'er gave birth. 



ANNA, thy charms my bosom fire, 
And waste my eoui with care j 



But ah 1 how bootless to admire, 
When fated to despair ! 

Yet in thy presence, lovely Fair, 
To hope may be forgiv'n ; 

For sure 'twere impious to despair, 
So much in sight of Heav'n. 



ON READING, IN A NEWSPAPER, 

THE DEATH OF JOHN 
M'LEOD, Esq. 

BROTHER TO A YOUNG LADY, APARTICU- 
LAR FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR'S. 

SAD thy tale, thou idle page, 

And rueful thy alarms : 
Death tears the brother of her love 

From Isabella's arms. 

Sweetly deckt with pearly dew 

The morning rose may blow ; 
But cold successive noontide blast* 

May lay its beauties low. 

Fair on Isabella's morn 

The sun propitious smil'd ; 
But, long ere noon, succeeding cloud* 

Succeeding hopes beguil'd. 

Fate oft tears the bosom chord* 

That nature finest strung ; 
So Isabella's heart was form'd, 

And so that heart was wrung. 

Dread Omnipotence, alone, 

Can heal the wound he gave ; 
Can pom. the brimful grief- worn eyes 

To scenes beyond the grave. 

Virtue's blossoms there shall blow 

And fear no withering blast ; 
There Isabella's spotless worth 

Shall happy be at last. 



THE 

HUMBLE PETITION 

OF 

BRUAR WATER* 

TO 

THE NOBLE DUKE OF ATHOL&. 

MY Lord, I know, your noble ear 
Wo ne'er assails in vain ; 

•Bruar Falls in Athole are exceedingly pielureequt 
and beautiful ; but their effect is much impaired by th« 
want of trees and shrubs. 



74 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Embolden'd thus, I beg you'll hear 
Your humble Slave complain, 

How saucy Phoebus' scorching beams, 
In flaming summer-pride, 

Dry-weathering, waste my foamy streams, 
And drink my crystal tide. 

The lightly-jumping glowrin trouts, 

That thro' my waters play, 
If, in their random, wanton spouts, 

They near the margin stray ; 
If, hapless chance ! they linger lang, 

I'm scorching up to shallow, 
They're left the whitening stanes amang, 

In gasping death to wallow. 

Last day I grat wi' spite and teen, 

AsPoet B**** camtby, 
That to a Bard I should be seen 

Wi' half my channel dry : 
A panegyric rhyme, I ween, 

Even as I was he shor'd me ; 
But had I in my glory been, 

He, kneeling, wad ador'd me. 

Here, foaming down the shelvy rocks, 

In twisting strength I rin ; 
There, high my boiling torrent smokes, 

Wild-roaring o'er a linn : 
Enjoying large each spring and well 

As nature gave them me, 
i am, altho' I say't mysel, 

Worth gaun a mile to see. 

Would then my noble master please 

To grant my highest wishes, 
He'll shade my banks wi'tow'ring trees, 

And bonnie spreading bushes ; 
Delighted doubly then, my Lord, 

You'll wander on my banks, 
And listen mony a grateful bird 

Return you tuneful thanks. 

Thesober laverock, warbling wild, 

Shall to the skies aspire ; 
The gowdspink, music's gayest child, 

Shall sweetly join the choir : 
The blackbird strong, the lintwhite clear, 

The mavis mild and mellow ; 
The robin pensive autumn cheer, 

In all her locks of yellcw : 

This too, a covert shall ensure, 

To shield them from the storm ; 
And coward maukin sleep secure, 

Low in her grassy form : 
Here shall the shepherd make his seat , 

To weave his crown of flow'rs ; 
Or find a sheltering safe retreat, 

From prone descending show'rs. 

And here, by sweet endearing stealth, 

Shall meet the loving pair, 
Despising worlds with all their wealth 

As empty, idle care : 
The flow'rs shall vie in all their charms 

The hour of heav'n to grac«, 



And birks extend their fragrant anne 
To screen the dear embrace. 

Here, haply too, at vernal dawn, 

Some musing bard may stray, 
And .eye the smoking, dewy lawn, 

And misty mountain, gray ; 
Or, by the reaper's nightly beam. 

Mild chequering thro' the trees, 
Rave to my darkly dashing stream. 

Hoarse swelling on the breeze 

Let lofty firs, and ashes cool, 

My lowly banks o'erspread, 
And view, deep-pending in the pool, 

Their shadows' wat'ry bed ! 
Let fragrant birks in woodbines dr 

My craggy cliffs adorn ; 
And, for the little songster's nest, 

The close etnbowMng thorn. 

So may, old Scotia's darling hope, 

Your little angel band, 
Spring, like their fathers, up to prop 

Their honour'd native land ! 
So may thro' Albion's farthest ken, 

The social flowing glasses, 
To grace be — " Athole's honest men, 

And Athole's bonnie lasses !" 



ON SCARING SOME WATER 
FOWL IN LOCH-TURIT. 

A WILD SCENE AMONG THE HILLS OF 
OUGHTERTYRE. 

WHY, ye tenants of the lake, 
For me your wat'ry haunt forsake.'* 
Tell me, fellow-creatures, why 
At my presence thus you fly ? 
Why disturb your social joys, 
Parent, filial, kindred ties? — 
Common friend to you and me, 
Nature's gifts to all are free : 
Peaceful keep your dimpling wave, 
Busy feed, or wanton lave ; 
Or beneath the sheltering rock, 
Bide the surging billow's shock. 

Conscious, blushing for our race, 
Soon, too soon, your fears I trace 
Man, your proud usurping foe, 
Would be lord of all below : 
Plumes himself in Freedom's pride. 
Tyrant stern to all beside. 

The eagle, from the cliffy brow, 
Marking you his prey below, 
In his breast no pity dwells, 
Strong necessity compels. 
But, man, to whom alone is giv'n 
A ray direct from pitying Heav'u, 



Glories In his heart humane— 
And creatures for his pleasure slain. 

In these savage, liquid plains, 
Only known to wand'ring swains, 
Where the mossy riv'let strays, 
Far from human haunts and ways ; 
All on Nature you depend, 
And life's poor season peaceful spend. 

Or, if man's superior might, 
Dare invade your native right, 
On the lofty ether borne, 
Man with all his pow'rs you scorn ; 
Swiftly seek, on clanging wings, 
O Itier lakes and other springs ; 
And the foe you cannot brave, 
Scorn at least to be his slave. 



BURNS' POEMS. 75 

WRITTEN WITH A PENCIL, 

STANDING BY THE PALL OPFYERS, NEAR 
LOCH-NESS. 

AMONG the heathy hills and ragged woods 
The roaring Fyers pours his mossy floods ; 
Till full he dashes on the rocky mounds, 
Where, through a shapeless breach, his stream re- 
sounds. 
As high in air the bursting torrents flow, 
As deep recoiling surges foam below, 
Prone down the rock the whitening sheet descends, 
And viewless echo's ear, astonish'd, rends, 
Dim-seen, through rising mists and ceaseless show'ri, 
The hoary cavern, wide-surrounding low'rs. 
Still thro' the gap the struggling river toils, 
And still below the horrid caldron boils— 



WRITTEN WITH A PENCIL 

OVER THE CHIMNEY-PIECE, 

IN THE PARLOUR OP THE INN AT KEN- 
MORE, TAYMOUTH. 

ADMIRING Nature in her wildest grace, 

These northern scenes with weary feet I trace ; 

O'er many a winding dale and painful steep, 

Th' abodes of covey'd grouse and timid sheep, 

My savage journey, curious, I pursue, 

Till fam'd Breadalbane opens to my view. 

The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides, 

The woods, wild scatter'd, clothe their ample sides ; 

Th' outstretching lake, embosom'd 'mong the hills, 

The eye with wonder and amazement fills ; 

The Tay meand'ring sweet in infant pride, 

The palace rising on his verdant side ; 

The lawns wood-fring'd in Nature's native taste ; 

The hillocks dropt in Nature's careless haste ; 

The arches striding o'er the new-born stream ; 

The village, glittering in the moontide beam- 



Poetic ardours in my bosom swell, 

Lone wand'ring by the hermit's mossy cell ; 

The sweeping theatre of hanging woods ; 

Th' incessant roar of headlong tumbling floods- 



Here poesy might wake her heav'n-taught lyre, 
And look through nature with creative fire ; 
Here, to the wrongs of fate half reconcil'd, 
Misfortune's lighten'd steps might wander wild ; 
And Disappointment, in-these lonely bounds, 
Find balm to soothe her bitter rankling wounds, 
Here heart-struck Grief might heav'n-ward stretch her 

scan, 
And injur'd Worth forget and pardon mam 



ON THE BIRTH 



POSTHUMOUS CHILD, 

BORN IN PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES OF 
FAMILY DISTRESS. 

SWEET Flow'ret, pledge o' meikleloTe, 

And ward o' manyapray'r, 
What heart o' stane wad thou na move, 

Sae helpless, sweet, and fair ! 

November hirples o'er the lea, 

Chill, on thy lovely form ; 
Andgane, alas ! the shelt'ring tree, 

Should shield thee frae the storm. 

May lie who gives the rain to pour, 

And wings the blast to blaw, 
Protect thee frae the driving showV 

The bitter frost and snaw 1 

May He, the friend of wo and want, 

Who heal's life's various stounds, 
Protect and guard the mother plant, 

And heal her cruel wounds 1 

But late she flourish'd, rooted fait, 

Fair on the summer morn : 
Now feebly bends she in the blast, 

Unshelter'd and forlorn. 

Blest be thy bloom, thou lovely gem, 

Unscath'd by ruffian hand ! 
And from thee many a parent item 

Arise to deck onr land ! 



76 



BURNS' POEMS. 



THE WHISTLE, 

A BALLAD. 



At the authentic prose history of the Whistle is curi- 
e»'is, I shall here give it. — In the train of Anne of Den- 
mark, when she came to Scotland, with our James the 
Jxth, therecame over also a Danish gentleman of gi- 
gantic stature and great prowess, and a matchless 
Champion of Bacchus. He had a little ebony Whistle, 
which at the commencement of the orgies he laid on the 
table, and whoever was last able to blow it, everybody 
else being disabled by the potency of the bottle, was to 
carry off the Whistle as a trophy of victory. The Dane 
produced credentials of his victories, without a single 
defeat, at the courts of Copenhagen, Stockholm, Mos- 
cow, Warsaw, and several of the petty courts in Ger- 
many ; and challenged the Scots Bacchanalians to the 
alternative of trying his prowess, or else of acknowl- 
edging their inferiority.— After many overthrows on 
the part of the Scots, the Dane was encountered by Sir 
Robert Lawrie of Maxwelton, ancestor of the present 
worthy baronet of that name ; who, after three days' 
and three nights' hard contest, left the Scandinavian 
under the table, 

And blew on the Whistle his requium shrill. 
SirW alter, son to Sir Robert before mentioned, after- 
wards lost the Whistle to Walter Riddle of Glenrid- 
del, who had married a sister of Sir Walter's.— On 
Friday the 16th of October, 1790, at Friars-Carse, the 
Whistle was once more contended for, as related in the 
ballad, bvthe present Sir Robert Lawrie of Maxwel- 
ton ; Robert Riddel Esq. of Glenriddel, lineal descend- 
ant and representative of Walter Riddel, who won the 
Whistle, and in whose family it had continued ; and 
Alexander Furgusson, Esq. of Craigrlarroch, likewise 
descended of the great Sir Robert; which last gentle- 
man carried off the hard-won honours of the field. 

I SING of a Whistle, a Whistle of worth, 

I sing of a Whistle, the pride of the North, 

Was brought to the conn of our good Scottish king, 

And long with this Whistle all Scotland shall ring. 

Old Loda,* still rueing the arm of Fingal, 
The god of the bottle sends down from his hall — 
" This Whistle's your challenge to Scotland get o'er, 
And drink them to hell, Sir I or ne'er see me more !" 

Old poets have sung, and old chronicles tell. 
What champions ventur'd, what champions fell ; 
The son of great Loda was conqueror still, 
And blew on the whistle his requium shrill. 

Till Robert, the lord of the Cairn and the Scaur, 
CTnmatch'd at the bottle, unconquer'd in war, 
He drank his poor god-ship as deep as the sea, 
No tide of the Baltic e'er drunker than he. 

Thus Robert, victorious, the trophy has gain'd ; 
Which now in his house has for ages remain'd ; 
Till three noble chieftains and all of his blood, 
The jovial contest again have renew 'd. 

Three joyous good fellows with hearts clear of flaw ; 
Vraigdarroch, so famous for wit, worth and law ; 
* S.ee Ossian's Carrie thura. 



And trusty Glenriddel, so skill'd in old colu* ; 
And gallant Sir Robert, deep read in old > 



Craigdarroch began, with a tongue smooth M oil, 
Desiring Glenriddel to yield up the spoil ; 
Or else he would muster the heads of the clan, 
And once more, in claret, try which was the man. 

" By the gods of the ancients !" Glenriddel replies, 
Before I surrender so glorious a prize, 
I'll conjure the ghost of the great Rorie More,* 
And bumper his horn with him twenty times o'er." 

Sir Robert, a soldier, no speech would pretend: 
But he ne'er turu'd his back on his foe — or his friend. 
Said, toss down the Whistle, the prize of the field, 
And knee-deep in claret, he'd die or he'd yield. 

To the board of Glenriddel our heroes repair, 
So noted for drowning of sorrow and care ; 
But for wine and for welcome not more known to 

fame, 
Than the sense, wit, and taste, of a sweet lorelj 

dame. 

A bard was selected to witness the fray, 
And tell future ages the feats of the day ; 
A bard who detested all sadness and spleen, 
And wish'd that Parnassus a vineyard had been. 

The dinner being over, the claret they ply, 
And every new cork is a new spring of joy ; 
In the bands of old friendship and kindred so set, 
And the bands grew the tighter the more they were 
wet. 

Gay pleasure ran riot as bumpers ran o'er ; 
Bright Phoebus ne'er witness'd so joyous a core, 
And vow'd that to leave them he was quite forlorn,' 
Till Cynthia hinted he'd see them next morn. 

Six bottles a-piece had well wore out the night, 
When gallant Sir Robert to finish the fight, 
Turn'd o'er in one bumper a bottle of red, 
And swore 'twas the way that their ancestors did. 

Then worthy Glen, iddel, so cautious and sage, 
No longer the warfare, ungodly, would wage 
A high ruling Elder to wallow in wine ! 
He left the foul business to folks less divine. 

The gallant Sir Robert fought hard to the end: 
But who can with fate and quart bumpers contend? 
Though fate said — a hero should perish in light ; 
So uprose bright Thcebus — and down fell the knight. 

Next uprose our bard, like a prophet in drink : — 
" Craigdarrich, thou'lt soar when creation shall sink I 
But if thou would flourish immortal in rhyme, 
Come— one bottle more — and have at the sublime I 

" Thy line, that have struggled for Freedom with 
Bruce, 
Shall heroes and patriots ever produce : 
So thine be the laurel, and mine be the bay ; 
The field thou hast won, by yon bright god of day t" 
* See Johnson's Tour to the Hebrides*. 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES OF POETRY 



EXTRACTED 



FROM THE CORRESPONDENCE OF BURNS; 

SONGS, 

O IMPOSED FOR THE MUSICAL PUBLICATIONS OF MESSRS. THOMSON AND JOHNSON } 

WITH ADDITIONAL PIECES. 



SECOND EPISTLE TO DAVIE, 

A BROTHER POET.* 

AULD NEEBOR 
I'm three times doubly o'er your debtor, 
For your auld farrant, frien'ly letter ; 
Tho' I maun say't, I doubt ye flatter, 

Ye speak sae fair ; 
For my puir, silly, rhymin' clatter, 

Some less maun sair. 

Hale be your heart, hale be your fiddle ; 
Lang may your elbuck jink an' diddle ; 
To cheer you through ihe weary widdle 

O' war'ly cares, 
Till bairns' bairns kindly cuddle 

Your auld, gray hairs. 

But, Davie, lad, I'm red ye're glaikit ; 
I'm tauld the Muse ye hae negleckit ; 
An' gif it's sae, ye sud be lickit 

Until ye fyke ; 
Sic hauns as you sud ne'er be faikit, 

Be hain'i wiia like. 

For me, I'm on Parnassus' brink, 
Rivin the words to gar them clink ; 
Whylesdais't wi' love, whyles dais't wi' drink, 

W.' jads or masons ; 
An, whyles, but ay owre late, I think 

Braw sober lessons. 

Of a' the thoughtless sonso' man, 
Commen' me to the Bardie clan ; 
Except it be some idle plan 

O' rhymin' clink, 
The devil-haet, that I sus ban, 

They ever think. 

Nae thought, nae view, nae scheme o' livin', 
Nae cares to gie us joy or grievin' : 

* This is prefixed to the poems of David Sillar, pub. 
fi«h«d at Kilmarnock, 1789. 



But just the pouchie put the nieve in, 

An' while ought'a then, 

Then, hiltie, skiltie, we gae scrievin', 

An' fase nae mair. 

Leeze me on rhyme ! it's aye a treasure, 
My chief, amaist my only Pleasure, 
At hame, a-fiel', at wark or leisure, 

The Muse, poor hliii* ! 
Tho' rough an' raploch be her measure, 

She's seldom lazy. 

Haud to the Muse, my dainty Davie : 
The warl' may play you monie a shavie ; 
But for the muse, she'll never leave ye, 

Tho' e'er sae puir, 
Na, even tho' limpin wi' the spavie 

Frae door to door 



THE LASS O' BALLOCHMYLE 

'Twas even — the dewy fields were green, 

On ev'ry blade the pearls hang ; 
The Zephyr wantoned round the bean, 

And bore its fragrant sweets alang : 
In every glen the mavis sang, 

All nature listening seemed the while, 
Except where green-wood echoes rang, 

Amang the braes o' Ballochmyle. 

With careless step I onward strayed, 

My heart rejoiced in nature's joy, 
When musing in a lonely glade, 

A maiden fair I chanced to spy ; 
Her look was like the morning's eye, 

Her air like nature's vernal smile, 
Perfection whispered passing by, 

Behold the lass o' Ballochmyle ! 

Fair is the morn in flowery May, 
And sweet is night in Autumn mild 



78 



BURNS' POEMS. 



When roving thro' the garden gay, 

Or wandering in the lonely wild : 
But woman, nature's darling child! 

There all her charms she does compile ; 
Even there her other works are foil'd 

By the bonny lasso' Ballochmyle I 

O, had she been a country maid, 

And I the happy country swain, 
Tho' sheltered in the lowest shed 

That ever rose in Scotland's plain ! 
Thro' weary winter's wind and rain 

With joy, with rapture, 1 would toil 1 ; 
And nightly to my bosom strain 

The bonny lass o' Ballochmyle. 
Then pride might climb the slipp'ry steep, 

Where fame and honours lofty shine ; 
And thirst of gold might tempt the deep ; 

Or downward seek the Indian mine ; 
Give me the cot below the pine, 

To tend the flocks or till the soil, 
And every day have joys divine, 

With the bonny lass o' Ballochmyle. 

TO MARY IN HEAVEN. 

THOU lingering star, with less'ning ray, 

That lov 'st to greet the early morn, 
Again thou usher'st in the day 

My Mary Irom my soul was torn, 
O Mary I dear departed shade 1 

Where is thy place of blissful rest? 
See'st thou thy lover lowly laid? 

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast ! 
That sacred hour can I forget, 

Can I forget the hallowed grove, 
Where by the winding Ayr we met, 

To live one day of parting love ! 
Eternity will not efface, 

Those records dear of transports past ; 
Thy image at our last embrace J 

Ah ! little thought we 'twas our last 1 
Ayr gurgling kissed his pebbled shore, 

O'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning, green ; 
The fragrant birch and hawthorn hoar, 

Twin'd amorous round the raptured scene. 
The flowers sprang wanton to be prest, 

The birds sang love on every spray, 
Till too, too soon, the glowing west, 

Proclaimed the speed of winged day. 
Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes, 

And fondly broods with miser care ! 
Time but the impression deeper makes, 

As streams their channels deeper wear. 
Mr Mary, dear departed shade ! 

Where is thy blissful place of rest ? 
See'st thou thy lover lowly laid? 

Hear'st thou tho groans that rend his breast ? 



LINES ON 

AN INTERVIEW WITH LORD DAER. 
THIS wot ye all whom it concerns, 
I Rhymer Robin, alias Burnt, 
October twenty-third, 



A ne'er to be forgotten day, 
Sae far I sprackled up the brae, 
I dinner'd wi a Lord. 

I've been at drunken writer's feasts, 
Nae, been bitch-fou 'mang godly priest*, 

Wi' rev'rence be it spoken ; 
I've even join'd the honour 'd jorum, 
When mighty Squiresliips of the quorum, 

Their hydra drouth did sloken. 

But wi' a Lord — stand out my shin, 
A Lord — a Peer — an Karl's son, 

Up higher yet my bonnet ; 
An' sic a Lord — lang Scotch ells twa, 
Our Peerage he o'er looks them a', 

As I look o'er my sonnet. 

But oh for Hogarth'* magic pow'r : 
To show Sir Bardy's willyart glowr, 

And how he star'd and stammer'd 
When goavan, as if led wi' branks, 
Au' stumpan' on his ploughman shanks. 

He in the parlour nammer'd. 



I sidling shelter'd in a nook, 
An' at his Lordship steal't a look 

Like some portentous omen J 
Except good-sense and social glee, 
An' (what surprised me) modesty, 

I marked nought uncommon. 

I watch'd the syrrptoms o' the g>eat, 
The gentle pride, the lordly state, 

The arrogant assuming ; 
The feint a pride, nae pride had he, 
Nor sauce, nor state that I could see, 

Mair than an honest ploughman. 

Then from his Lordship I shall learn, 
Henceforth to meet with unconcern 

One rank as well's another ; 
Nae honest worthy man need care, 
To meet with noble, youthful Daer, 

For he but meets a brother. 



ON A YOUNG LADY. 

Residing on the banks of the small river Devon, v\ 
Clackmannanshire, but whose infant yeara uer$ 
spent in Ayrshire. 

How pleasant the banks of the clear-winding Devon, 
With green-spreading bushes, and flowers blooming 
fair; 

But the bonniest flower on the banks of the Devon, 
Was once a sweet bud on the braes of the Ayr. 

Mild be the sun on this sweet blushing flower, 
In the gay rosy morn as it bathes in the dew I 

And gentle the fall of the soft vernal shower, 
That steals on the evening each leaf to renew 



BURNS' POEMS. 



79 



O -.pare the dear blossom, ye orient breezes, 
With chill hoary wing as ye usher the dawn 1 

And far be thou distant, thou reptile that seises 
The verdure and pride of the garden and lawn 1 

Let Bourbon exult in his gay gilded lilies, 
And England triumphant display her proud rose ; 

A fairer than either adorns the green valleys 
Where Devon, sweet Devon, meandering flows. 



CASTLE GORDON. 



I, 



STREAMS that glide in orient plains, 
Never bound by winter's chains ; 
Glowing here on golden sands, 
There commix'd with foulest stains 
From tyranuy'3 empurpled bands : 
These, their richly-gleaming waves, 
I leave to tyrants and their slaves ; 
Give me the stream that sweetly laves 
The banks, by Castle Gordon. 



I am nae-body's lord, 
I'll be slave to nae-body ; 

I hae a guid braid sword, 
I'll tak dunts frae nae-body. 

I'll be merry and free, 
I'll be sad for nae-body ; 

If nae-body care for me, 
I'll' care for nae-body. 



ON THE DEATH OF A LAP-DOG, 

NAMED ECHO. 

In wood and wild, ye warbling throng, 

Your heavy loss deplore ; 
Now half-extinct your powers of song, 

Sweet Echo is no more. 



II. 



Spicy forests, ever gay, 
Shading from the burning ray 
Hapless wretches sold to toil, 
Or the ruthless native's way, 
Bent on slaughter, blood, and spoil : 
Woods that ever verdant wave, 
I leave the tyrant and the slave, 
Give me the groves that lofty brave 
The storms, by Castle Gordon. 

HI. 

Wildly here without control, 
Nature reigns and rules the whole ; 
In that sober pensive mood, 
Dearest to the feeling soul, 
She plants the forest, pours the flood ; 
Life's poor day I'll musing rave, 
And find at night a sheltering cave, 
Where waters flow and wild woods wave, 
Bv bonnie Castle Gordon.* 



NAE-BODY. 

I HAE a wife o' my ain, 

I'll partake wi' nae-body ; 
I'll tak cuckold frae nane, 

I'll gie cuckold to nae-body. 

I hae a penny to spend, 

There— thanks to nae-body ; 
I hae naething to lend, 

I'll borrow frae nae-body. 

• These verses our Poet composed to be Bung to Mo- 
tag, a bighlaud air, of which he was extremely fond. 



Ye jarring screeching things around, 
Scream your discordant joys; 

Now half your din of tuneless sound 
With Echo silent lies. 



SONG.* 

TUNE—" I am a man unmarYied M 

O, ONCE I lov'd a bonnie lass, 

Ay, and I love her still, 
And whilst that virtue warms my breast 

I'll love my handsome Nell. 

Tal lal de ral, *f e 

As bonnie lasses 1 hae seen, 

And mony full as braw, 
But fora modest gracefu' mien 

The like I never saw. 

A bonnie lass, I will confess, 

Is pleasant to the e'e, 
But without some better qualities 

She's no a lass for me. 

But Nelly's looks are blithe and sweet, 

And what is best of a', 
Her reputation is complete, 

And fair without a flaw. 

She dresses ay sae clean and neat. 

Both decent and genteel ; 
And then there's something in her gatt 

Gars ony dress look weel. 

A gaudy dress and gentle air 

May slightly touch the heart 
But it's innocence and modesty 

That polishes the dart. 

• This was our Port's first fttteapt. 



80 



BURNS' POEMS 



'Tin this in Nelly pleases me, 

"Tis this enchants my soul ; 
For absolutely in my breast 

She reigns without control. 

Tal lal de ral, Ire. 



INSCRIPTION 
TO THE MEMORY OF FURGUSSON. 
HERE LIES ROBERT FERGUSSON, POET. 

Born September 5th, 1751— Diea, 16th October 1774. 

No sculptur'd marble here, nor pompous lay 

"No storied urn n^r animated bust," 
This simple stone directs pale Scotia's way 

To pour her sorrows o'er her poet's dust. 

THE CHEVALIER'S LAMENT. 

THE small birds rejoice in the green leaves returning, 
' The murmuring streamlet winds clear thro' the vale ; 
The hawthorn trees blow in the dews of the morning, 
And wild scatter'd cowslips bedeck the green dale : 

But what can give pleasure, or what can seem fair, 
While the lingering moments are number'd by care ? 

No flowers gaily springing, nor birds sweetly singing 
Can sooth the sad bosom of joyless despair. 
The deed that I dar'd could it merit their malice, 

A king and a father to place on his throne ? 
His right are these hills, and his right are these valleys, 

Where the wild beast find shelter, but I can find 



But 'tis not my sufferings thus wretched, forlorn, 
My brave gallant friends, 'tis your ruin I mourn 
Your deeds prov'd so loyal in hot bloody trial, 
Alas I can I make you no sweeter return ! 



EPISTLE TO R. GRAHAM, Esq. 

WHEN Nature her great master-piece design'd, 
And fram'd her last best work the human mind, 
Her eye intent on all the mazy plan, 
Sheform'dof various parts the various man. 

Then first she calls the useful many forth ; 
Plain plodding industry and sober worth : 
Thence peasants, farmers, native sons of earth, 
And merchandise, whole genus take their birth : 
Each prudent cit a warm existence finds, 
And all mechanics' many apron 'd kinds. 
Some other rarer sorts are wanted yet, 
The lead and buoy are needful to the net ; 
The caput mortuum of gross desires 
Make* a material for mere knights and squires ; 



The martia. pnosopnorus is taugnt to flow 

I She kneads the lumpish philosophic dough. 
Then makes th' unyielding mass with grave designs, 
j Law, physics, politics, and deep divines : 
Last, she sublimes th' Aurora of the poles, 
The flashing elements of female souls. 

The order 'd system fair before her stood, 
Nature, well-pleas'd, pronounced it very good ; 
But e'er she gave creating labour o'er, 
Half jest, she try'd one curious labour more. 
Some spumy, fiery, ignis fatuus matter ; 
Such as the sligutest breath of air might scatter ; 
With arch-alacrity and conscious glee 
(Nature-may have her whim as well as we, 
Her Hogarth-art perhaps she meant to show it) 
She forms the thing and christens it — a poet. 
Creature, tho' oft the prey of care and sorrow, 
When blest to-day unmindful of to-morrow. 
A being form'd t'amuse his graver friend, 
Admir'd and prais'd — and here the homage ends : 
A mortal quite unfit for Fortune's strife. 
Vet oft the sport of all the ills of life ; 
Prone to enjoy each pleasure riches give, 
Vet haply wanting where withal to live : 
Longing to wipe each tear, to heal each groan, 
Yel frequent all unheeded in his own. 

But honest nature is not quite a Turk, 
She laugh'd at first, then felt for her poor work. 
I itying the propless climber of mankind, 
She cast about a standard tree to find ; 
And, to support his helpless woodbine state, 
Attach 'd him to the generous truly great, 
A title, and the only one 1 claim, 
To lay strong hold for help on bounteous Graham. 

Pity the tuneful muses hapeless train, 
Weak, timid landmen on life's stormy main I 
Their hearts on selfish stern absorbent stuff, 
That nevergives— tho' humbly takes enough ; 
The little fate allows, they share as soon, 
Unlike sage, proverb'd Wisdom's hard-wrung boon. 
The world were blest did bliss on them depend, 
Ah, that" the udly e'er should want a friend 1" 
Let prudence number o'er each sturdy son, 
Who life and wisdom at one race begun, 
Who feel by reason, and who give by rule, 
(Instinct's a brute, and sentiment a fool 1 ) 
Who make poor will do wait upon / should — 
We own they're prudent but who feels they'-'*' ?ood 
Ye wise ones, hence ! ye hurt the social eye ! 
God's image rudely etch'd on base alloy ! 
But come ye who the godlike pleasure know. 
Heaven's attribute distinguish'd — to bestow.' 
Whose arms of love would grasp the human race : 
Come thnu who giv'st with all a courtier's grace ; 
Friend of my life, true patron of my rhymes 1 
Prop of my dearest hopes for future times. 
Why shrinks my soul half blushing, half afraid, 
Backward, abash 'd to ask thy friendly aid? 
I know my need, I know th v giving hand, 
I crave thy friendship at thy kind command ; 
But there are such who court the tuneful nine- 
Heavens ! should the branded character be mine I 
Whose verse in manhood's pride sublimely flows, 
Yet vilest reptiles in their begging prose 



BURNS POEMS. 



81 



Mark, how their lofty independent spirit 

Soars on i'je the spurning wing of injur'd merit ! 

Seek not the proofs in private life to find ; 

Pity the best ot words should be but wind ! 

So, to heaven's gates the lark's shrill song ascends, 

But grovelling on the earth the carol ends. 

In all the clam'rous cry of starving want, 

They dun benevolence with shameless front ; 

Oblige them, patronise their tinsel lays, 

They persecute you all your future days ! 

Ere my poor soul such deep damnation stain, 

My homy fist assumes the plough again ; 

The piebald jacket let me patch once more ; 

On eighteen-pence a week, I've liv'd before. 

Though, thanks to Heaven, I dare even that last shift. 

I trust meantime my boon is in thy gift : 

That plac'd by thee upon the wish'd-for height, 

Where, man and nature fairer in her sight, 

My muse may imp her wing for some sublime flight, 



FRAGMENT, 



INSCRIBED TO THE RIGHT HON. C. J. FOX. 

How wisdom and folly meet, mix, and unite ; 
How virtue and vice blend their black and their white ; 
How genius, the illustrious lather of fiction, 
Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction — 
1 sing : If these mortals, the cities, should bustle, 
I cars not, not I, let the critics go whistle. 

But now for a Patron, whose name and wnose giory 
At once may illustrate and honour my story. 

Thou first of our orators, first of our wits ; 
Yet whose parts and acquirements seem mere lucky 

hits ; 
With knowledge so vast, and with judgement so strong, 
No man with the half of 'em e'er went quite wrpng ; 
With passions so potent, and fancies so bright, 
No man with the half of 'em e'er went quite right ; 
A sorry, poormisbegot son of the Muses, 
For using thy name offers fifty excuses. 

Good L — d, what is man ! for as simple he looks, 
Do but try to develop his hooks and his crooks ; 
With his depths and his shallows, his good and his evil, 
AH in all he's a problem must puzzle the devil. 

On his one ruling passion Sir Pope hugely labours, 
That, like th' old Hebrew walking-switch, eats up its 

neighbours : 
Mankind are his show-box— a friend, would you know 

him ? 
Pull the string, ruling passion the picture will show 

him. 
What pity, in rearing so beauteous a system, 
One trifling particular, truth, should have miss'dhim ; 

• This is our Poet's first epistle to Graham of Fin- 
try, It is not equal to the second ; but it contains too 
much of the characteristic vigour of its author to be 
suppressed. A little more knowledge of natural his- 
tory, or of chemistry, was wanted to enable him to ex- 
ecute the original conception correctly. 



For, spite of his fine theoretic positions, 
Mankind is a science defies definitions. 

Some sort all our qualities each to its tribe, 
And think human nature they truly describe ; 
Have you found this, or t'other ? there's more in to. 

wind, 
As by one drunken fellow his comrades you'll fina. 
But such is the flaw, or the depth of the plan, 
In the make of that wonderful creature, call'd Mas, 
No two virtues, whatever relation they claim, 
Nor even two different shades of the same, 
Though like as was ever twin brother to brother, 
Possessing the one shall imply you've the other. 



TO DR. BLACKLOCK. 

Ellisland,21si Oct. 1789. 

Wow, out your letter made me vauntie 1 
And are ye hale, and w?.el. and cantie ? 
I kenn'd it still your wee bit jauntie 

Wad bring ye to : 
Lord send you ay as weel's I want ye, 

And then ye '11 do. 

The ill-thief blaw the Heron south ! 
And never drink be near his drouth I 
He tald myself by word o' mouth, 

He'd tak my letter ; 
I lippen'd to the chiel in troutli, 

And bade nae better. 

But aiblins honest Master Heron 
Had at the time some dainty fair one, 
To ware his theologic care on, 

And holy study ; 
And tir'd o' sauls to was.e his lear on, 

E'en tried the body.* 

But what d'ye think, my trusty fier, 
I'm turn'd a gauger— Peace be here 1 
Parnassian queens, I fear I fear 

Ye '11 now disdain me, 
And then my fifty pounds a year 

Will little gain me. 

Ye glaikit, gleesome, daintie damies, 
Whaby Castalia's wimplin streamies, 
Lowp, sing, and lave your pretty limbies, 

Ye ken, ye ken, 
That Strang necessity supreme is 

'Mang sons o' men. 

I hae a wife and twa wee laddies, 

They maun hae brose and brats o' duddies ; 

Ye ken yoursels my heart right proud is, 

I need na vaunt. 
But I'll sned besoms— thraw saugh woodies, 

Before they want. 

Lord help me thro' this warld o' care ! 
I'm weary sick o'tlate and air ! 

* Mr. Heron, author of the History of Scotland 
of?arious other works. 

2 



82 



BURNS POEMS. 



Not but I hae a richer share 

Than moiiy ilhers ; 
But why should ae men better fare, 

And a' men brithera ? 

Coroe, Firm Resolve, take thou the van, 
Thou stalk o' carl hemp in man ! 
And let us mind, faint heart ne'er wan 

A lady fair j 
Wha does the utmost that he can, 

Will whyles do mair. 

But to conclude my silly rhyme, 

(I'm scant o' verse, and scant o' time,) 

To make a happy fire-side clime 

To weans and wife, 
That's the true pathos and sublime 

Of human life. 

My compliments to sister Beckie ; 
And eKe the same to honest Lucky, 
. wat she is a dainty chuckie, 

As e'er tread clay ! 
And gratefully, my guid auld cockie, 

I'm yours foray. 

ROBERT BURNS. 



PROLOGUE, 

SPOKEN AT THE THEATRE ELLISLAND, ON 
NEW-YEAR-DAY EVENING. 

No song nor dance I bring from yon great city 
That queens it o'er our taste — the more's the pity : 
Tho', by the by, abroad why will you roam ? 
Good sense and taste are natives here at home : 
But not for panegyric I appear, 
I come to wish you all a good new year 1 
Old Father Time deputes me here before ye, 
Not for to preach, but tell his simple story : 
The sage grave ancient cough'd, and bade me say, 
"You're one year older this important day," 
If wiser too — he hinted some suggestion, 
But 'twould be rude, you know, to ask the question ; 
And with a would-be-roguish leer and wiuk, 
He bade me on you press this one word — " think !" 

Ye sprightly youths, quite flush with hope and spirit, 
Who think to storm the world by dint of merit, 
To you the dotard has a deal to say, 
In his sly, dry, sententious, proverb way ! 
He bids you mind, amid your, thought less rattle, 
That the first blow is ever half the battle ; 
That tho' some by the skirt may try to snatch him ; 
Vet by the forelock is the hold to catch him ; 
That whether doing, suffering, or forbearing 
You may do miracles by persevering. 

Last, tho' not least in love, ye youthful fair, 
Angelic forms, high Heaven's peculiar ra>-^ ! 
To you old Bald-pate smooths his wriincleri brow, 
And humbly begs you'll mind the important — now I 



To crown your happiness he asks your leare, 
And offers, bliss to give and to receive. 

For our sincere, tho' haply weak endeavour*, 
With grateful pride we own your many favour* • 
And howsoe'erour tongues may ill reveal it, 
Believe our glowing bosoms truly feel it. 



ELEGY 
ON THE LATE MISS BURNET 

OFMONBODDO. 

LIFE ne'er exulted in so rich a prize, 

As Burnet lovely from her native skies ; 

Nor envious death so triumph'd in a blow, 

As that which laid the accomplish'd Burnet low. 

Thy form and mind, sweet maid, can I forget ? 
In richest ore the brightest jewel set ! 
In thee, high Heaven above was truest shown 
As by his noble work the Godhead best is known. 

In vain ye flaunt in summer's pride, ye groves ; 

Thou crystal streamlet with thy flowery shore, 
Ye woodland choir that chant your idle loves, 

Ye cease to charm — Eliza is no more ! 

Ye heathy wastes, immix'd with reedy fens : 

Ye mossy streams, with sedge and rushes stor'd , 

Ye rugged cliffs, o'erhangiiig dreary glens, 
To you I fly, ye with my soul accord. 

Princes, whose cum'brous pride was all their worth 
Shall venal lays their pompous exit hail? 

And thou, sweet excellence ! forsake our eartb, 
And not a muse in honest grief bewail ? 

We saw thee shine in youth and beauty's pride, 
And virtue's light, that beams beyond the sphere* 

But like the sun eclips'd at morning tide, 
Thou left'st us darkling in a world of tears 

The parent's heart that nestled fond in thee, 
That heart how sunk, a prey to grief and care ! 

So deckt the woodbine sweet yon aged tree, 
So from itravish'd, leaves it bieak and bare. 



IMITATION 

OF AN OLD JACOBITE SONG. 

BY yon castle wa', at the close of the day, 
I heard a man sing, tho' his head it was gray ; 
And as he was singing, the tears fast down came— 
There!ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame. 

The church is in ruins, the state is in jars, 
Delusions, oppressions, and murderous wars ; 
We dare nae weel say 't, but we ken wha's to blame-? 
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame, 



BURNS' POEMS. 



83 



Mr seven braw sons for Jamie drew sword, 
And now I greet round their green beds in the yerd : 
It brak the sweet heart o' my faithfu' auld dame— 
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame. 

Now life is a burden that bows me quite down, 
Sin' I tint my bairns, and he tint his crown ; 
But till my last moment my words are the same— 
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame. 



SONG OF DEATH. 

Scene— a field of battle ; time of the day— evening ; 
the wounded and dying of the victorious army are 
supposed to join in th e following Song. 

FAREWELL, thou fair day, thou green earth, and 
ye skies, 

Now gay with the bright setting sun ! 
Farewell, loves and friendships, ye dear tender ties, 

Our race of existence is run ! 

Thou grim king of terrors, thou life's gloomy foe, 

Go, frighten the coward and slave ; 
Go, teach them to tremble, fell tyrant I but know, 

No terrors hast thou to the brave ! 

Thoustrik'st the dull peasant — he sinks in the dark, 

Nor saves e'en the wreck of a name : 
Thou strik'st the young hero — a glorious mark ! 

He falls in the blaze of his fame ! 

In the field of proud honour — our swords in our hands, 

Our King and our country to save — 
While victory shines on life's last ebbing sands, 

O who would not rest with the brave ! 



THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. 

Jn Occasional Address spoken by Miss Fontenelle < 
her Benefit-Night. 

WHILE Europe's eye is fix'don mighty things, 
The fate of empires and the fall of kings ; 
While quacks of state must each produce his plan, 
And even children lisp the Rights of Man ; 
Amid this mighty fuss, just let me mention, 
The Rights of Woman merit some attention. 

First, in the sexes' intermix'd connection, 
One sacred Right of Woman is protection. — 
The tender flower that lifts its head, elate, 
Helpless, must fall before the blast of fate, 
Sunk on the earth, defac'd its lovely form, 
Unless your shelter ward th' impending storm.— 

Our second Right— but needless here is caution, 
To keep that right inviolate's the fashion, 
Each man of sense has it so full before him, 
He'd die before he'd wrong it — 'tis decorum. — 
There was, indeed, in far less polish'd days, 
A time, when rough rude man had naught" ways J 



Would swagger, swear, get drunk, kick up a riot 
Nay, even thus Invade a lady's quiet — 
Now, thank our stars ! these Gothic times are fled ; 
Now, well-bred men — and you are all well-bred 
Most justly think (and we are much the gainers) 
Such conduct neither spirit, wit, nor manners. 

For Right the third, our last, our best, our dearest. 
That right to fluttering female hearts the nearest, 
Which even the Rights of Kings in low prostration 
Most humbly own — 'tis dear, dear admirationl 
In that blest sphere alone we live and move ; 
There taste that life of life— immortal love.— 
Smiles, glances, sighs, tears, fits, flirtations, airs, 
Gainst such an host what flinty savage dares — 
When awful Beauty joins with all her charms, 
Who is so rash as rise in rebel arms ? 

But truce with kings, and truce with constitution*, 
With bloody armaments and revolutions ; 
Let majesty our first attention summon, 
Ah! ca ira! the Majes'.y of Woman ! 



ADDRESS, 

Spokenby Miss Fontenelle, on her benefit-night, De- 
cember 4, 1795, at the Theatre, Dumfries. 

STILL anxious to secure your partial favour, 
And not less anxious, sure, this night, than ever, 
A Prologue, Epilogue, or some such matter, 
'Twould vamp my bill, said I, if nothing better; 
So, sought a Poet, roosted near the skies ; 
Told him I came to feast my curious eyes ; 
Said, nothing like his works was ever printed ; 
And last, my Prologue-business slily hinted. 
" Ma'am, letmetell you," quoth my man of rhymes, 
" I know your bent — these are no laughing times ; 
Can you— but Miss, I own I have my fears, 
Dissolve in pause — and sentimental tears — 
With laden sighs, and solemn-rounded sentence, 
Rouse from his sluggish slumbers, fell Repentance ; 
Paint Vengeance as he takes his horrid stand, 
Waving on high the desolating brand, 
Calling the storms to bear him o'er a guilty land?" 

I could no more — askance the creature eyeing, 
D'ye think, said I, this face was made for crying? 
I'll laugh, that's poz— nay more, the world shall know 

it; 
And so, your servant ! gloomy Master Poet. 

Firm as my creed, Sirs, 'tis my fix'd belief, 
That Misery's another word for Grief: 
I also think— so may I be a bride I 
That so much laughter, so much life enjoy'd. 

Thou man of crazy care and ceaseless sigh, 
Still under bleak Misfortune's blasting eye ; 
Doom'd to that sorest task of man alive— 
To make three guineas do the work of five : 
Laugh in Misfortune's face— the beldam witch • 
Say, you'll be merry, though you can't be rich. 

Thou other man of care, the wretch in love. 
Who long with jiltish arts and airs hast etrov 



81 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Who, as the bougns all temptingly project, 
Meaaur'st in desperate thought — a rope — thy neck- 
Or, where the beetling cliff o'erhangs the deep, 
Peerest to meditate the healing leap ; 
Wouldst thou be cur'd, thou silly, moping elf, 
Laugh at her follies— laugh e'en at thyself: 
Learn to despise those frowns now so terrific, 
And love a kinder — that's your grand specific 



To sum up all, be merry, I advise ; 
And as we're merry, may we still be wise. 



SONGS. 



THE LEA-RIG. 

WHEN o'er the hill the eastern star, 

Tells bughtin-lime is near, my jo ; 
And owsen frae the furrow 'd field, 

Return sae dowf and weary, O ; 
Down by the burn, where scented birks, 

Wi' dew are hanging clear, my jo, 
I'll meet thee on the lea-rig, 

My ain kind dearie, O. 

In mirkestglen, at midnight hour, 

I'd rove and ne'er be eerie, O, 
If thro' that glen, I gaed to thee, 

My ain kind dearie, O. 
Altho' the night were ne'er sae wild, 

And I were ne'er sae wearie, O, 
I'd meet thee on the lea-rig, 

My ain kind dearie, O . 



The hunter lo'es the morning sun, 

To rouse the mountain deer, my jo, 
At noon the fisher seeks the glen, 

Along the burn to steer, my jo ; 
Gieme the hour o' gloamin gray, 

It maks my heart sae cheery, O, 
To meet thee on the lea-rig, 

My ain kind dearie, O. 



TO MARY. 

TUNE—" Ewe-bughts, Marion, 

WILL ye go to the Indies, my Mary, 
And leave auld Scotia's shore? 

yVill ye go to the Indies my Mary, 
Across th' Atlantic's roar? 

O sweet grows the lime and ihe orange, 

And the apple on the pine ; 
But a' the charms o' the Indies, 

Can never equal thine. 



I hae sworn by the Heavens to my Mary, 
I swore by the Heavens to be true ; 

And sae may the Heavens forget me, 
When I forget my vow ! 

O plight me your faith, my Mary, 
And plight me your lily-white hand ; 

O plight me your faith, my Mary, 
Before I leave Scotia's strand. 

We hae plighted our troth, my Mary, 

In mutual affection to join, 
And curst be the cause that shall part ut I 

The hour, and the moment o' time I* 



MY WIFE'S A WINSOME WEE THIK«. 

SHE is a winsome wee thing, 
She is a handsome wee thing, 
She is a bonnie wee thing, 
This sweet wee wife o' mine. 

I never saw a fairer, 

I never lo'ed a dearer, 

And niestmy heart I'll wear her, 

For fear my jewel tine. 

She is a winsome wee thing, 
She is a handsome wee thing, 
She is a bonnie wee thing, 
This sweet wee wife o' mine. 

The warld's wrack we share o't, 
The warstle and the care o't; 
Wi' her I'll blithly bear it, 
And think my lot divine. 



BONNIE LESLEY. 

SAW ye bonnie Lesley 

As she gaed o'er the border ? 
She's gaen, like Alexander, 

To spread her conquets farther. 

To see her is to love her, 

And love but her for ever ; 
For Nature made her what sneia, 

And ne'er made sic aniUier t 

Thou art a queen, fair Les'ey, 

Thy subjects we, before thee; 
Thou art divine, fair Lesley, 

The hearts o' men adore thee. 

The Deil he could na scaith thee, 

Or aught that wad belang thee ; 
He'd look into the bonnie face, 

And say, " I canna wrang thee." 

• This Song Mr. Thompson has not adopted in his 
collection. It deserves, however, to be preserved. E, 



BURNS' POEMS. 



The Powers aboon will tent thee ; 

Misfortune sha'na steer thee ; 
Thou'rtiike themselves sae lovely 

That ill they'll ne'er let near thee. 

Return again, fair Lesley, 

Return to Caledonie I 
That we may brag, we hae a lass 

There's nane again saebonnie. 



HIGHLAND MARY. 
TUNE—" Catharine Ogie." 

fE banks, and braes, and streams around, 

The castle o' Montgomery, 
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, 

Your waters never drumlie ! 
There simmer first unfauld her robes, 

And there the langest tarry ; 
For there I took the last fareweel 

O' my sweet Highland Mary. 

How sweetly bloom'd the gay green birk, 

How rich the hawthorn's blossom ; 
As underneath their fragrant shade 

I clasp'd her to my bosom ! 
The golden hours on angel wings, 

Flew o'er me and my dearie ; 
For dear to me, as light and life, 

Was my sweet Highland Mary. 

WI' mony a vow, and lock'd embrace, 

Our parting was fu' tender ; 
And pledging aft to meet again, 

We tore oursels asunder ; 
But Oh! fell death's untimely frost, 

That nipt my flower sae early ! 
Now green's the sod andc*»ld's the clay, 

That wraps my HighlaRJ Alary 1 

O pale, pale now, t'.iose nwj lips, 

I aft hae kiss'd sae fondly. ! 
And closed for ay, the sparkling glance, 

That dwelt on me sae kindly ! 
A mouldering now in silent dust, 

That heart that lo'ed me dearly ! 
But still within my bosom's core, 

Shall live my Highland Mary. 



AtJLD ROB MORRIS. 

THERE'S auld Rob Morris that wons in yon glen, 
He's the king o' guid fellows and wale of auld men ; 
He has gowd in his coffers, he has owsen and kine, 
And ae bonnie lassie, his darling and mine. 

She's fresh as the morning, the fairest in May ; 
She's sweet as the ev'ning amangthenew hay ; 
As blithe and as artless as the lambs on the lea, 
And dear to my heart as the light to my e'e. 



But Oh ! she's an heiress, auld Robin'i a laird, 
And my daddie has nought but a cot-house and yard; 
A wooer like me maunna hope to come speed, 
The wounds I must hide that will soon be my dead. 

The day comes to me, but delight brings me nane ; 
The night comes to me, but my rest it is gane : 
I wander my lane like a night-troubled ghaist, 
And I sigh as my heart it would burst in my breart. 

O, had shebeen but of lower degree, 
I then might hae hjp'd she wad smil'd upon me I 
O, how past describing had then been my bliw, 
As now my distraction no words can express \ 



DUNCAN GRAY. 

DUNCAN GRAY came here to woo, 
Ha, ha, the wooing oH, 
Onblythe yule night when we werefou, 

Ha, ha, the wooing o , t, 
Maggie coost her head fu' high, 
Look'd asklent and unco skeigh, 
Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh ; 
Ha, ha, the wooing o't 

Duncan fleech'd, and Duncan pray'd ; 

Ha, ha, Ifc. 
Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig, 

Ha, ha, $rc. 
Duncan sigh'd baith out and in, 
Grat his een baith bleer't and blia', 
Spak o' lowpin owre a linn ; 

Ha, ha, Ifc. 



Time and chance are but a tide, 

Ha, ha, Ife. 
Slighted love is sair to bide, 

Ha, ha, t(C. 
Shall I, like a fool, quoth he, 
For a haughty hizjie die ? 
She may gae to— France for me I 

Ha, ha, Sfc. 

How it comes let doctors tell, 

Ha, ha, Sfc. 
Meg grew sick — as he grew heal, 

Ha, ha, Sfc. 
Something in her bosom wrings, 
For relief a sigh she brings ; 
And O, hereen, they spak sic thins 

Ha, ha, ifc. 



Duncan was a M.A o' grace, 

Ha, ha, tfc. 
Maggie's was a piteous case, 

Ha, ha, 4"c. 
Duncan could na be her death. 
Swelling pity smoor'd his wrath; 
Now they're crouse ard canty b*U 

Ha, ha fye. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



SONG. 
TUNE—" I had a horse.' 

O POORTITH cauld, and restless lore, 

Ye wreck my peace between ye ; 
Vet poortith a' I could forgive, 

An' 'twere na for my Jeanie. 
O why should fate sic pleasure have, 

Life's dearest bands untwining? 
Or why sae sweet a flower as love 

Depend on Fortune's shining ? 

This warld's wealth when I think on, 
Its pride, and a' the lave o't ; 

Fie, fie on silly coward man, 
That he should be the slave o't. 
Owhy, Sfc. 

Her een sae bonnie blue betray, 
How she repays my passion ; 

But prudence is her o'erword ay, 

She talks of rank and fashion. 

O why, Sfc. 

O wha can prudence think upon, 

And sic a lassie by him ? 
O wha can prudence think upon, 

And sae in love as I am ? 
Owhy, Sfc. 

How blest the humble cotter's fate 1 
He wooes his simple dearie ; 

The sillie bogles, wealth and state, 
Can never make them eerie. 

O why should fate sic pleasure have, 
Life';: dearest bands untwining ? 

Or why sae sweet a flower as love, 
Depend on Fortune's shining ? 



GALL A WATER. 

THERE'S braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes, 

That wander thro' the blooming heather ; 
But Yarrow braes nor Ettric shaws, 

Can match the lads o' Galla water- 
But there is ane, a secret ane, 

Aboon them a' I lo'e him better ; 
And I'll be his, and he'll be mine, 

The bonnie lad o' Galla water. 

Altho' his daddie was nae laird, 
And tho' I hae nae meikle tocher ; 

Yet rich in kindest, truest love, 
We'll tent our flocks by Galla water. 

It ne'er was wealth, it ne'er was wealth, 
Thatcoft contentment, peace, or pleasure, 

The bands and bliss o' mutual love, 
O that's the chiefest warld's treasure ! 



LORD GREGORY. 

O MIRK, mirk is this midnight hour, 

And loud the tempest roar ; 
A waefu' wanderer seeks thy tow'r, 

Lord Gregory, ope thy door. 

An exile frae her father's ha', 

And a' for loving thee ; 
At least some pity on me shaw, 

II love it may na be. 

Lord Gregory, mind'st thou not the grovw. 

By bonnie Irwiue side, 
Where first I own'd that virgin-love 

I lang, lang had denied. 

How aften didst thou pledge and vow, 

Thou wad for ay be mine ! 
And my fond heart, itsel sae true, 

It ne'er mistrusted thine. 

Hard is thy heart, Lord Gregory, 

And flinty is thy breast : 
Thou dart of heaven that flashestby, 

O wilt thou give me rest ! 

Ye mustering thunders from above, 

Your willing victim see ! 
But spare, and pardon my fause love, 

His wrangs to heaven and me ! 



MARY MORISON. 
TUNE— "Bide ye yet." 

MARY, at thy window be, 

It is the wish'd, the trysted hour ! 
Those smiles and glances let me see, 

That make the miser's treasure poor ) 
How blithly wad I bide the stoure, 

A weary slave frae sun to sun ; 
Could I the rich reward secure, 

The lovely Mary Morison. 

Yestreen when to the trembling string, 
The dance gaed thro' the lighted ha'. 

To thee my fancy took its wing, 
I sat, but neither heard or saw : 
\ Tho' this was fair, and that was braw, 
And yon the toast of a' the town, 

1 s!gh'd, and said amang them a', 
" Ye are na Mary Morison." 

O Mary, canst thou wreck his peae«, 

W.ia for thy sake wad gladly die ? 
Or canst thou break that heart of hii, 

Whase only fault is loving thee ? 
If love for love thou wiltna gie, 

At least be pity to me shown ! 
\A thought ungentle canna be 

The thoughts o' Mary MorUoa. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



97 



WANDERING WILLIE. 

tlERK awa, there awa, wandering Willie, 
Now tired with wandering, haud awa hame ; 

Come to my bosom my ae only dearie, 
And tell me thou bring'st me my Willie the same. 

Loud blew the cauld winter winds at our parting ; 

It was na the blast brought the tear to my e'e : 
Now welcome the simmer, and welcome my Willie, 

The simmer to nature, my Willie to me. 

Ye hurricanes, rest in the cave o' your slumbers, 
U how your wild horrors a lover alarms ! 

Awaken ye breezes, row gently ye billows, 
Aad waft my dear laddie auco mair to my arms. 

But if he's forgotten his faithfulest Nannie, 
O still flow between us, thou wide roaring main ; 

May I never see it, may I never trow it, 
But dying believe that my Willie's my ain 1 



As altered by Mr Erskine and Mr. Thomson. 

HERE awa, there awa, wandering Willie, 
Here awa, there awa, haud awa hame, 

Come to my busom my ain only dearie, 
Tell me thou bring'st me my Willie the same. 

Winter-winds blew loud and caul at our parting, 
Fears for my Willie brought tears in my e'e, 

Welcome now simmer, and welcome my Willie, 
As simmer to nature, so Willie to me. 

Rest, ye wildstor>ns, in the cave o' your slumbers, 
How your dread howling a lover alarms ! 

Blow soft ye breezes ! roil geut'y ye billows I 
And waft my dear laddie ance mair to my arms. 

But Oh, if he's faithless, and minds na his Nannie, 
Flow still between us thou dark-heaving main ! 

May I never see it, may I never trow it, 

While dying I think that my Willie's my ain. 

Our Poet, with his usual judgement, adopted some of 
these alterations, and rejected others. The last 
edition is as follows : 

HERE awa, there awa, wandering Willie, 
Here awa, there awa, haud awa hame ; 

Come to my bosom my ain only dearie, 
Tell me thou bring'st me my Willie the same. 

Whiter winds blew loud and cauld at our parting, 
Fears for my Willie brought tears in my e'e, 

Welcome now simmer, and welcome my Willie, 
The simmer to nature, my Willie to me. 

Rest, ye wild storms in the cave of your slumbers, 
How your dread howling a lover alarms ! 

VYauken ye breezes, row gently ye billows, 
And waft my dear laddie ance mair to my aims. 



But oh ! if he's faithless, and minds na his Nannie, 
Flow still between us thou wide-roaring main ; 

May I never see it, may 1 never trow it, 
But dying, believe that my Willie's my ain. 



OPEN THE DOOR TO ME, OH 

WITH ALTERATIONS. 

OH, open the door, some pity to show, 

Oh, open the door to me, Oh! 
Tho'thou hast been fakse, I'll ever prove true, 

Oh, open the door to me, Oh ! , 

Cauld is the blast upon my pale cheek, 

But caulder thy love for me, Oh ! 
The frost that freezes the life at my heart, 

Is nought to my pains frae thee, Oh ! 

The wan moon is setting behind the white wave, 

And time is setting with me, Oh ! 
False friends, false love, farewell 1 for mair 

I'll ne'er trouble them, nor thee, Oh ! 

She has open'dthe door, she has open'd it wide ; 

She sees his pale corse on the plain, Oh ! 
My true love, she cried, and sank down by hia tide J 

Never to rise again, Oh ! — 



TUNE—" Bonny Dundee," 

TRUE hearted was he, the sad swain o' the YarroT 

Aud fair are the maids on the banks o' the Ayr, 
But by the sweet side o' the Nith's winding river, 

Are lovers as faithful, and maidens as fair : 
To equal young Jessie seek Scotland all over ; 

To equal young Je6sie you seek it in vain ; 
Grace, beauty, and elegance fetter her lover, 

And maidenly modesty fixes the chain. 

O, fresh is the rose in the gay, dewy morning, 

And sweet is the lily at evening close ; 
But in the fair presence o' lovely young Jessie, 

Unseen is the lily, unheeded the rose. 
Love sits in her smile, a wizard ensnaring ; 

Enthron'd in her een he delivers his law ; 
And still to her thams she alone is a stranger I 

Her modest demeanour's the jewel of a'. 



WHEN WILD WAR'S DEADLY BLAST WA3 
BLAWN. 

AIR— "The Mill Mill 0." 

WH EN wild war's deadly blast wu blawn 

And gentle peace returning, 
Wi' mouy a sweet babe fartherless, 

And mony a widow mourning, 



S3 



BURNS' POEMS. 



i left the lines and tented field, 
Where lang I'd been a lodger ; 

My humble knapsack a' my wealth, 
A poor and honest sodger. 

A leal, light heart was in my breast, 

My hand unstain'd v i' plunder ; 
And for fair Scotia's haroe again, 

I cheery on did wander. 
I thought upon the banks o' Coil, 

1 thought upon my Nancy, 
I thought upon the witching smile 

That caught my youthful fancy. 

At length I reach'd the bonnie glen, 

Where early life I sported ; 
I pass'd the mill, and trysting thorn, 

Wnere Nancy aft I courted : 
Wha spied I but my ain dear maid, 

Down by her mother's dwelling ! 
And turn'd me round to hide the flood 

That in my een was swelling. 

Wi' alter'd voice, quoth I, sweet lass, 

Sweet as yon hawthorn's b.ussom, 
O ! happy, happy may he be, 

That's dearest to thy bosom I 
My purse is light, I've far to gang, 

And fain wad be thy lodger ; 
I've serv'd my king and country lang, 

Take pity on a sodger. 

Sae wistfully she gaz'd on me, 

And lovelier than ever : 
&uo' she, a sodger ance I lo'ed, 

Forget him shall I never : 
Our humble cot, and hamely fare, 

Ye freely shall partake it, 
That galtant badge, the dear cockade, 

Ye 're welcome for the sake o't. 

She gaz'd — she redden'd like a rose — 

Syne pale like ony lily ; 
She sank within my arms, and cried, 

Art thou my ain dear Willie ? 
By him who made yon sun and sky— 

By whom true love's regarded, 
I am the man ; and thus may still 

True lovers be rewarded. 

The wars are o'er, and I'm come hame, 

And find thee still true-hearted ; 
Tho' poor in gear, we're rich in love, 

And mair we'se ne'er be parted. 
d,uo' she, my grandsire left megowd, 

A mailen plenish'd fairly ; 
And come, my faithfu' sodger lad, 

Thou'rt welcome to it dearly ! 

For gold the merchant ploughs the main, 

The farmer ploughs the manor ; 
But glory is the sodger's prize ; 

Thesodger's wealth is honour, 
The brave poor sodger ne'er despise, 

Nor count him as a stranger, 
Remember he s his country's stay 

la day and hour of danger. 



MEG O' THE MILL. 

AIR— "O bonny lass, will you lie in a Barrack* 

O KEN ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten, 
An' ken ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten ? 
She has gotten a coof wi' a c!aut o' siller, 
And broken the heart o' the barley Miller. 

The Miller was strappin, the Miller was ruddy ; 
A heart like a lord, and a hue like a lady : 
The laird was a widdiefu', bleerit knurl : — 
's left the guid fellow and ta'en the churl. 

The miller hehecht her a heart leal and loving ; 
The Laird did address her wi' matter mair moving. 
A fine pacing horse wi' a clear chained bridle, 
A whip by her side, and a bonnie side-saddle. 

O wae on the siller, it is sae prevailing ; 
And wae on the love that is fix'd on a mailen I 
A tocher's nae word in a true lover's parle, 
But, gie me my love, and a fig for the warl 1 



TUNE—" Liggcram Coeh. 

BLITHE hae I been on yon hill, 

As the lambs before me ; 
Careless ilka thought and free, 

As the breeze flew o'er me : 
Now nae longer sport and play, 

Mirth or sang can please me ; 
Lesley is sae fair and coy, 

Care and anguish seize me. 



Heavy, heavy, is the task, 

Hopeless love decla-ing ; 
Trembling, Idow nocht but glow'r, 

Sighing, dumb, despairing ! 
If she winna ease the thraws, 

In my bosom swelling ; 
Underneath the grass green-sod, 

Soon maun be my dwelling. 



TUNE—" Logan Water.' 

O LOGAN, sweetly didst thou glide, 
That day I was my Willie's bride ; 
And years sinsyne has o'er us run, 
Like Logan to the simmer sun. 
But now thy flow'ry banks appear 
Like drumlie winter, dark and drear, 
While my dear lad maun face his faee 
Far, far frae me and Logan braes. 

Again the merry month o' May, 
Has made our hills and valleys gay • 



BURNS» POEMS. 



" *e Mrd» rejoice in leafy bow'rs, 
The bees hum round theJbreathing flow' 
Blithe, morning lifts his rosy eye, 
And ev'ning's tears are tears of joy : 
My soul, delightless, a' surveys, 
While Whillie's farfrae Logan braes. 

Within yon milk-white hawthorn bush, 
Amang her nestlings sits the thrush ; 
Her faithfu' mate will share her toil, 
Or wi' his song her cares beguile, 
But I wi' my sweet nurslings here, 
Nae mate to help, nae mate to cheer, 
Pass widow 'd nights and joyless days, 
While Willie's far irae Logan braes 1 

O w»e upon you, men o' state, 
That brethren rouse to deadly hate I 
As ye make mony a fond heart mourn 
Sae may it on your heads return 1 
How can your flinty hearts enjoy, 
The widow's tears, the orphan's cry ? 
But soon may peace bring happy days, 
And Willie, hame to Logan brae* ? 



FRAGMENT, 

IN 

witherspoon's collection 

OF 

SCOTS SONGS. 

AIR—" Hughie Graham." 

•* O GIN my love were yon red rose, 

That grows upon the castle wa', 
And I mysel a drop o' dew, 

Into herbonnie breast to fa' I 

" Oh, there beyond expression blest, 

I'd feast on beauty a' the night ; 
Seal'd on her silk-saft faulds to rest, 

Till fley'd awa' by Fhcebus' light." 

O were my love yon lilac fair, 

Wi' purple blossoms to the spring, 
And 1, a bird to shelter there, 

When wearied on my little wing : 

How I wad mourn, when it was torn 
By autumn wild, and winter rude ! 

But I wad sing on wanton wing, 
When youthfu' May its bloom renew'd.* 

* These stanzas were added by Burns. 



BONNIE JEAN. 

THERE was a lass : and she was fair, 

At kirk and market to be seen, 
When a' the fairest maids were met, 

The fairest maid was bonnie Jean. 

And ay she wrought her mammie's wark ; 

And ay she sang sae merrilie : 
The blithest bird upon the bush 

Had ne'er a lighter heart than she. 

But hawks will rob the tender joys 
That bless the little lintwhite's nest : 

And frost will blight the fairest flow'rs 
And love will break the soundest rest. 

Young robbie was the bra west lad, 
The flower and pride o' a' the glen ; 

And he had owsen, sheep and kye. 
And wanton naigiesnine or ten. 

He gaed wi' Jeanie to the tryste, 
He danc'd wi' Jeanie on the down 

And lang ere witless Jeanie wist, 
Her heart was tint, her peace was stowz> 

As in the bosom o' the stream, 
The moon beam dwells at dewy e'en ; 

So trembling, pure, was tender love, 
Within the breast o' bonnie Jean. 

And now she works her mammie's war .. 

And ay she sighs wi' care and pain ; 
Ye wist na what her ail might be, 

Or what wad mak her weel again. 

But did na Jeanie's heart loup light, 
And did na joy blink in her e'e, 

As Robie tauld her a tale o' love, 
Ae e'enin on the lilly lea ? 

The sun was sinking in the west, 
The birds sang sweet in ilka grove ; 

His cheek to hers he fondly prest, 
And whispered thus his tale o' love : 

O Jeanie fair, I lo'e thee dear : 
O canst th"u think to fancy me ! 

Or wilt thou leave thy mammie's cot, 
And learn to tent the farms wi' me ? 

At barn or byre thou shalt na drudge, 
Or naething else to trouble thee ; 

But stray amang the heather-bells, 
And tent the waving corn wi' me. 

Now what could artless Jeanie do ? 

She had nae will to say him na : 
At length she blush'd a sweet consent, 

And love was ay between them twa . 

PHILLIS THE EAiR 
TUNE—" Robin Adair- 

WHILE lark* with little win^ , 
Fann'd the pure air, 



90 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Tasting the breathing spring, 

Forth I did fare : 
Gay the sun's golden eye, 
Peep'd o'er the mountains high 
Such thy morn : did I cry, 

Phillis the fair. 

Xl. each bird's careless song, 

Glad did I share ; 
While yon wild fiow'rs among, 

Chance led me there ; 
Sweet to the opening day, 
Rosebuds bent the dewy spray ; 
Such thy bloom ! did I say, 

Phillis the fair. 

Down in a shady walk, 

Doves cooing were, 
I mark'd the cruel hawk 

Caught in a snare : 
So kind may fortune be, 
Such make his destiny, 
He who would injure thee, 

Phillis the fair. 



TO the same Tune 

HAD I a cave on some wild, distant shore, 
Where the winds howl to the waves dashing roar ; 
There would I weep my woes, 
There seek my last repose, 
Till grief my eyes should close, 
Ne'er to wake more. 

Falsest of womankind, canst thou declare, 
All thy fond plighted vows— fleeting as air ! 
To thy new lover hie, 
Laugh o'er thy perjury, 
Then in thy bosom try, 

What peace is there ! 



TUNE—" Allan Water." 

BY Allan stream I chane'd to rove, 

While Fhoebus sank beyond Benleddi ;* 
The winds were whispering thro' the grove, 

The yellow corn was waving ready : 
I liaten'd to a lover's sang, 

And thought on youtbfu' pleasures mony ; 
And ay the wild-wood echoes rang — 

O, dearly do I love thee, Annie ! 

O, happy be the woodbine bower, 

Nae nightly bogle makes it eerie ; 
Nor ever sorrow stain the hour, 

The place and time I met my dearie 1 

• A mountain west of Straith Allan, 3,000 feet high. 



Her head upon my throbbing breast, 
She, sinking, said, " I'm thine forever ! r 

While mony a kiss the seal imprest, 
The sacred vow, we ne'er should s»rer. 

The haunt o' spring's the primrose brae, 

The simmer joys the flocks to follow ; 
How cheery thro' her shortening day, 

Is autumn, in her weeds o' yellow ; 
But can they melt the glowing heart, 

Or chain the soul in speechless pleasure, 
Or thro' each nerve the rapture dart, 

Like meeting her, our bosom's treasure ; 



WHISTLE, AND I'LL COME TO YOU A 

LAD. 

O WHISTLE, and I'll come to you, my lad : 
O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad : 
Tho' father and mither and a' should gae mad, 
O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad. 

But warily tent, when ye come to court me, 
And come na unless the back-yett be a-jee ; 
Syne up the back style, and let nae body see 
And come as ye were na comin to me, 
And come, &c. 

O whistle, tfc. 

At kirk, or at market, whene'er ye meet m», 
Gang by me as tho' that ye car'd na a (lie : 
But steal me a blink o' your bonnie black e'e. 
Yet look as ye were na looking at me 
Yet look, &c. 

O whistle, Sfc. 

Ay vow and protest that ye care na for me. 
And whyles ye may lightly my beauty a wee ; 
But court na anither, tho' jokin ye be, 
For fear that she wyle your fancy frae roe. 
For fear, &c. 

O whistle, tyc. 



SONG. 
TUNE—" The mucking o' Geordie's byr». 

ADO WN winding Nith I did wander, 
To mark the sweet flowers as they sprung 

Adown winding Nith I did wander, 
Of Phillis to muse and to sing. 

CHORUS. 

Awa wi' your belles and your beautitt 
They never wi' her can compare : 

Whatever has met wi' my Philli*, 
Has met wi' the queen o' the fair. 

The daisy amus'd my fond fancy, 
So artless, so simple, so wild ; 




iOTif^iiVL^ 



BURNS' POEMS. 



91 



Thou emblem, said I, o' my Phillis, 
For she is simplicity's child. 
Awa, Sfc. 

The rose-bud's the blush o' my charmer, 
Her sweet balmy lip when 'ti3 prest ; 

How fair and how pure is the lily, 
But fairer and purer her breast. 
A tea, SfC. 

Yon knot of gay flowers in the arbour, 
They ne'er wi' my Phillis can vie : 

Her breath is the breath o' the woodbine 
Its dew-drop o' diamond, her eye. 

Awa, Sfc. 

Her voice is the song of the morning, 

That wakes thro' the green-spreading grove, 

When Phoebus peeps over the mountains, 
On music, and pleasure and lore. 
Awa, Sfc. 

But beauty how frail and how fleeting, 
The bloom of a fine summer's day 1 

While worth in the mind o' my Phillis 
Will flourish without a decay. 
Awa, Sfc. 



SONG. 
Air—" Cauld Kail." 

COME, let me take thee to my breast, 

And pledge we ne'er shall sunder ; 
And I shall spurn as vilest dust 

The warld's wealth and grandeur. 
And do I hear my Jeanie own, 

That equal transports move her? 
I ask for dearest life alone 

That I may live to love her. 

Thus in my arms all wi' thy charms, 

I clasp my countless treasure ; 
I'll seek nae mair o' heaven to share ; 

Than sic a moment's pleasure : 
And by thy een, sae bonnie blue, 

I swear I'm thine forever 1 
And on thy lips I seal my vow, 

And break It shall I never. 



DAINTY DAVIE. 

Now rosy May comes in wi' flowers, 
To deck her gay, green spreading bowers; 
And now comes in my happy hours ; 
To wander wi' my Davie. 

CHORUS. 

Meet me on the warlock knowe, 
Dainty Davie, dainty Davie, 

Thtr* Til spend, the day wi' you, 
My ain dear dainty Davie. 



The crystal waters round us fa', 
The merry birds are lovers a', 
The scented breezes round us blaw, 
A wandering wi' my Davis. 
Meet me, Sfc. 

When purple morning starts the hare 
To steal upon her early fare, 
Then thro' the dews I will repair, 
To meet my faithfu' Davie. 
Meet me, Sfc. 

When day, expiring in the west, 
The curtain draws o' nature's rest, 
I flee to his arms I lo'e best, 

And that's my ain dear Davie. 

CHORUS. 

Meet me on the warlock knowe, 
Bonnie Davie, dainty Davie, 

There I'll spend the day wi' you, 
My aindear dainty Davie. 



TUNE—" Oran Gaoil." 

BEHOLD the hour, the boat arrive ; 

Thou goest, thou darling of my heart I 
Sever'd from thee can I strive ? 

But fate has will'd and we must part. 
I'll often greet its surging swell, 

Yon distant isle will often hail: 
" E'en her I took the last farewell ; 

There latest mark'dher vanish'd sail." 

Along the solitary shore, 

While flitting sea-fowl round me cry, 
Across the rolling, dashing roar 

I'll westward turn my wistful eye : 
Happy, thou Indian grove, I'll say, 

Where now my Nancy's path may be t 
While thro' thy sweets she loves to stray, 

O tell me, does she muse on me 1 



SONG. 
T UN E— "Fee him Father." 

THOU hast Mime ever, Jamie, Thon hast left me 

ever. 
Thou hast left me ever, Jamie, Thou hast left noc 

ever. 
Aften hast thou vow'd that death, Only should us 

sever. 
Now thou'st left thy lass for ay— I maun see th*« 

never, Jamie, 
I'll see thee never. 

Thou hast me forsaken, Jamie.Thou hast me forsaken. 
Thou hast rce forsaken, Jamie, Thou hast me forsake*. 



92 



/. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Thou caust love anither jo, While my heart is break- 
ing. 
Soon my weary een I'll close— Never mair to waken, 
Jamie, 
Ne'er mair to waken. 



AULD LANG SYNE. 

SHOULD auld acquaintance be forgot, 

And never brought to min' ? 
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 

And days o' lang syne ? 

CHORUS. 

For auld lang syne, my dear, 

For auld lang syne, 
We'll talc a cup o' kindness yet, 

For auld lang syne. 

We twa hae ran about the braes , 

And pu'd the gowans fine ; 
But we've wander'd mony aweary foot, 

Sin auld lang syne. 
For auld, Ice. 

We twa hae paidl't i' the burn, 

Prae mornin sun ti'l dine : 
But seas between us braid hae roar'd, 

•Sin auld lang syne. 
For auld, Ifc. 

And here's a hand, my trusty fier, 

And gie's a hand o' thine ; 
And we'll tak a right guid willie waught 

For auld lang syne. 
Forauld, Ire. 

And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp, 

And surely I'll be mine ; 
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, 

For auld lang syne. 
Forauld, tfc. 



BANNOCK-BURN. 

ROBERT BRUCE'S ADDRESS TO HIS ARMY. 

SCOTS, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, 
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led, 
Welcome to your gory bed, 
Or to glorious victory. 

Now's me day, and now's the hour ; 
See the front o' battle lower ; 
See approach proud Edward's power 
Edward ! chains and slavery ! 



Wha for Scotland's king and law 
Freedom's sword will strongly draw, 
Free-man stand, or free-man fa', 
Caledonian ! on wi' me ! 

By oppressions woes and pains ! 
By your sons in servile chains ! 
We will drain our dearest veins, 
But they shall be— shall be free ! 

Lay the proud usurpers low 1 
Tyrants fall in every foe 1 
Liberty's in every blow 1 
Forward 1 let us do, or die I 



PAIR JENNY. 
TUNE—" 3aw ye my father ?" 

WHERE are the joys I have met in the morning, 
That dane'd, to the lark's early song? 

Where is the the peace that awaited my wand'ring, 
At evening the wild woods among ? 

No more a winding the course of yon river, 
And marking sweet flow 'rets so fair : 

No more I trace the 'ight footsteps of pleasure, 
But sorrow and sad sighing care. 

Is it that summer's forsaken our valleys, 

And grim, surly winter is near ? 
No, no, thebees humming round the.gay roses. 

Proclaim it the pride of the year. 

Fain would I hide what I fear to discover, 

Yet long, too well have I known : 
All that has caused this wreck in my bosom, 

Is Jenny, fair Jenny alone. 

Time cannot aid me, my griefs are immortal, 

Nor hope dare a comfort bestow ; 
Come then, enamoui'd and fond U my anguish, 

Enjoyment I'll seek in my wo. 



TUNE— "The Collier's Dochter. 

DELUDED swain, the pleasure 

The fickle Fair can give thee, 
Is but a fairy treasure, 

Thy hopes will soon deceive thee. 



Wha will be a traitor knave ? 
Wha can fill a coward's grave ? 
Wha sae base as be a slave ? 
Traitor ! cbward, turn and flee I 



The billows on the ocean, 
The breezes idly roaming, 

The clouds' uncertain motion, 
They are but types of woman. 

O art thou not ashamed, 
Todoat upon a feature ? 

If man thou wouldst be named, 
Despise the tilly creature. 



BURNS* POEMS. 



9) 



(So, find an honest fellow ; 

Good claret let before thee : 
Hold on till thou art mellow, 

And then to bed in glory. 



TUNE—" The Cluaker'B wife. 

THINE am I, my faithful fair, 

Thine, my lovely Nancy ; 
Ev'ry pulse along my veins, 

Ev'ry roving fancy. 

To thy bosom lay my heart, 

There to throb and languish ; 
Tho' despair had wrung its coie, 

That would heal its anguish. 

Take away those rosy lips, 

Rich with balmy treasure : 
Turn away thine eyes of love, 

Lest I die with pleasure. 

What is life when wanting love i 

Night without a morning : 
Love's the cloudless summer sun, 

Nature gay adorning. 



SONG. 
TUNE— " Jo Janet." 

HUSBAND, husband, cease your strife, 

Nor longer idly rave, Sir ; 
Tho' I am your wedded wife, 

Yet I am not your slave, Sir. 

" One of two must still obey, 

Nancy, Nancy ; 
Ib it man or woman, say, 

My spouse, Nancy ?" 

If 'tis still the lordly word, 

Service and obedience ; 
I'll desert mysov'reign lord. 

And so, good b'ye allegiance ! 

" Sad will T be, so bereft, 

Nancy, Nancy ; 
Yet I'll try to make a shift, 

My spouse, Nancy." 

My poor heart then break it must, 

My last hour I'm near it : 
When you lay me in the dust 

Think, think how you will bear it. 

" I will hope and trust in Heaven, 

Nancy, Nancy ; 
Strength to oear it will be given, 

My spouse, Nancy." 

Well, Sir, from the silent dead 
Still I'll try to daunt you 



Ever round your midnight bed 
Horrid sprite* shall haunt you. 

" I'll wed another, like my dear 

Nancy, Nancy ; 
Then all hell will fly for few 

My spouse, Nancy." 



AIR—" The Sutor's Dochter. 

WILT thou be my dearie ? 

When sorrow wrings thy gentle heart. 

Wilt thou let me cheer thee ? 

By the treasure of my"soul, 

That's the love I bear thee I 

I swear and vow that only thou 

Shall ever be my dearie. 

Only thou, I swear and vow, 

Shall ever be my dearie. 

Lassie, say thou lo'es me ! 
Or if thou wilt na be my ain, 
Say na thou'lt refuse me : 
If it winna, canna he, 
Thou, for thine may choose me, 
Let me, lassie, quiokly die, 
Trusting that thou lo'es me. 
Lassie let me quickly die, 
Trusting that thou lo'es me. 



BANKS OF CREE. 

Here is the glen, and here the bower, 
All underneath the birchin shade, 

The village-bell has toll'd the hour, 
O what can stay my lovely maid ? 

'Tis not Maria's whispering call : 
'Tis but the balmy-breathing gale ; 

Mixt with some warbler's dying fall 
The dewy star of eve to hail. 

It is Maria's voice 1 hear ! 

So calls thewoodlarkin the grove, 
His little faithful mate to cheer, 

At once 'tis music — and 'tis love.. 

And art thou come ! and art thou true I 
O welcome dear to love and me ! 

And let us all our vows renew, 
Along the flowery banks of Cree. 



VERSES TO A YOUNG LADY. 

WITH 

A PRESENT OF SONGS. 

HERE, where the Scottish muse immortal lives, 
In sacred strains and tuneful numbers join'd. 



M 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Accept the' gift ; tho' humble he who gives, 
Rich is the tribute of the grateful mind. 

.Jo may no ruffian-feeling in thy breast, 
Discordant jar thy bosom-chords among 

But peace attune thy gentle soul to rest, 
Or love extatic wake his seraph song. 

Or pity's notes, in luxury of tears 
As modest want the tale of wo reveals ; 

While conscious virtue all the strain endures, 
And heaven-born piety her sanction seaU. 



ON THE SEAS AND FAR AWAY. 

TUNE-" O'er the Hills," &c. 

How can my poor heart be glad, 
When absent from my sailor lad? 
How can I the thought forego, 
He's on the seas to meet the foe ? 
Let me wander, let me rove ; 
Still my heart is with my love ; 
Nightly dreams and thoughts by day 
Are with him that's far away. 

CHORUS. 

On the seas and far away, 
On stormy seas and far away : 
Nightly dreams and thoughts by day 
Are ay with him that's far away. 

When in summer's noon I faint, 
As weary flocks around me pant, 
Haply in this scorching sun 
My sailor's thuud'ring at his gun : 
Bullets, spare my only joy ! 
Bullets, spare mj' darling boy ! 
Fate do with me vliat you may 
Spare but him that's far away ! 
On the seas, Sfc. 

At the starless midnight hour, 
When winter rules with boundless pow'r ; 
As the storms the forests tear 
And thunders rent the howling air, 
Listening to the doubling roar, 
Surging on the rocky shore, 
AU I can — I weep and pray, 
For hisweal that's far away. 
On the seas, Ifc. 

Peace, thy olive wand extend, 
And bid wild war his ravage end, 
Man with brother man to meet, 
And as a brother kindly greet : 
Then may heaven with prosp'rous gales, 
Fill my sailor's welcome sails, 
To my arms their charge convey, 
My dear lad that's far away. 
Oft the seas, (re. 



TUNE—" Ca' the Yowes to the Knowet." 

CHORUS. 

Ca' the yowes to the knowes, 
Co* them whare the heather grows, 
Ca' them whare the burnie rows, 
My bonnie dearie. 

HARK, the mavis' evening sang 
Sounding Clouden's woods amang ; 
Then a-faulding let us gang, 
My bonnie dearie. 
Co? the, Sfc. 

We'll gae down by Clouden side, 
Thro' the hazels spreading wide, 
O'er the waves, that sweetly glide 
To the moon sae clearly. 
Ca' the,kc. 

Yonder Clouden's silent towers, 
Where at moonshine midnight hour, 
O'er the dewy bending flowers, 
Fairies dance sae cheery. 
Ca' the, &.c. 

Ghaist nor bogle shall thou fear ; 
Thou'rt to love and heav'n iae dear, 
Nocht of ill may come thee near, 
My bonnie dearie. 
Ca' the, &c. 

Fair and lovely as thou art, 
Thou hast stown my very heart ; 
I can die — but canna part, 
My bonnie decrie. 
Ca' the, fyc. 



SHE SAYS SHE LO'BS ME BEST OP A' 
TUNE—" Onagh's Water-fall." 

SAE flaxen were her ringlets, 

Her eyebrows of a darker hue, 
Bewitchingly o'er-arching 

Twa laughing een o' bonnie blue. 
Her smiling sae wyling, 

Wad make a wretch forget his wo ; 
What pleasure, what treasure, 

Unto these rosy lips to grow ! 
Such was my Chloris' bonnie face, 

When first her bonnie face I saw ; 
And ay my Chloris' dearest charm, 

She says she lo'es me best of a'. 

Like harmony her motion ; 

Her pretty ancle is a spy 
Betraying fair proportion, 

Wad mak a saint forget the sky. 
Sae warming, sae charming, 

Her faultless form, andgracefu' air J 



BUllNS' POEMS. 



95 



Ilk feature— auld nature 

Declar'd that she could do nae mair : 
Hers are the willing chains o' love, 

By conquering beauty's sovereign law ; 
And ay my Chloris' dearest charm, 

She says she lo'esmebest of a'. 

Let others love the city, 

And gaudy show at sunny noon ; 
Gie me the lonely valley, 

The dewy eve, and rising moon ; 
Fair beaming, and streaming, 

Her silver light the boughs amang ; 
While falling, recalling, 

The amorous thrush concludes her sang ; 
There, dearest Chloris, wi'.t thou rove 

By wirnpling burn and leafy shaw, 
And hear my vows o' truth and love, 

And say thou lo'es me best of a' I 



SAW YE MY PHELY. 

(Quasi dicat fhillis.) 

TUNE— 1 When she cam ben she bobbit. 

O SAW ye my dear, my Phely ? 
O saw ye my dear, my Phely ? 
She's down i' the grove, sne's wi' a new lovei 
She winna come hame to her Willy. 

What says she, my dearest, my Phely? 
What says she, my dearest, my Phely ? 
She lets thee to wit that she has thee forgot 
And for ever disowns thee her Willy. 

had I ne'er seen thee, my Phely I 
O had I ne'er seen thee, my Phely I 
As light as the air, and fause as thou's fair, 
Thou's broken the heart o' thy Willy. 



TUNE—" Cauld Kail in Aberdeen.' 

How long and dreary is the night, 

When I am frae my dearie ; 
I restless lie frae e'en to morn, 

Tho' I were ne'er sae weary, 

CHORUS. 

For oh, her lanety nights are long 
And oh, her dreams sae eerie ; 

And oh, her widow'd heart is sair, 
That's absent frae her dearie. 

When I think on the Kthsome days 

I spent wi' thee my dearie ; 
And now what seas between us roar, 

How can I be but eerie f 
For oh, Ire. 



How slow ye move, ye heavy boars : 
The joyless day how dreary I 

It was na sae ye glinted by. 
When I was wi 1 mv deari*. 
For oh, Sec. 



SONG. 
TUNE—" Duncan Gray." 

LET not woman e'er complain, 

Of inconstancy in love; 
Let not woman e'er complain, 

Fickle man is apt to rove : 

Look abroad through Nature's range, 
Nature's mighty law is change ; 

Ladies, would it not be strange, 
Man should then a monster prove ? 

Mark the winds, and mark the skies ; 

Ocean's ebb, and ocean's flow : 
Sun and moon but set to rise, 

Round and round the seasons go. 

Why then a6k of silly man, 
To oppose great Nature's plan ? 

We'll be constant while we can— 
You can be no more., you know. 



THE LOVER'S MORNING SALUTE TO HIS 



TUNE—" Deil tak the Wars." 

SLEEP'ST thou, or wak'st thou, fairest creato-e, 

Rjsy morn now lifts his eye, 
Numbering ilka bud which Nature 

Waters wi' the tears o' joy : 

Now thro' the leafy woods, 

And by the reeking floods, 
Wild Nature's tenants, freely, gladly stray ; 

The liu'.white in his bower 

Chants o'er the breathing flower ; 

The lav'rock to the sky 

Ascends wi' sangs o' joy, 
While the sun and thou arise to bless the day. 

Phosbus gilding the brow o' morning, 

Banishes ilk darksome shade, 
Nature gladdening and adorning ; 

Such to me my lovely maid. 

When absent frae my fair, 

The murky shades o' care 
With starless gloom o'ercast my snllea *ky ; 

But when, in beauty's light, 

She meets my ravish'd sight, 

When through my very heart 

Her beaming glories dart ; 
'Tisthen I wake to life, to light, and )oy. 



96 



BURNS' POEMS. 



THE AULD MAN. 

BUT lately seen in gladsome green 

The woods rejoic'd the day, 
Thro' gentle showers the laughing flowers 

In double pride were gay : 
But now our joys are fled, 

On winter blasts awa ! 
Vet maiden May, in rich array, 

Again shall bring them a'. 

But my white pow, nae kindly thowe 

Shall melt the snaws of age ; 
My trunk of eild, but buss or bield, 

Sinks in time's wintry rage. 
Oh, age has weary days, 

And nights o' sleepless pain I 
Thou golden time o' youthfu' prime, 

Why com'st thou not again ! 



SONG 
TUNE—" My Lodging is on the cold ground. 

MY Chloris, mark how gr>«en the groves, 

The primrose banks how fair : 
The balmy gales awake the flowers, 

And wave thy flaxen hair. 

The lav'rock shuns the palace gay, 

And o'er the cottage sings : 
For nature smiles as sweet I ween, 

To shepherds as to kings. 

Let minstrels sweep the skilfu' string 

In lordly lighted ha' : 
The shepherd stops his simple reed, 

Blithe, in the birken shaw. 

The princely revel may survey 

Oxr: rustic dance wi' scorn ; 
But are their hearts as light as ours 

Beneath the milk-white thorn ? 

The shepherd, in the flowery glen, 

In shepherd's phrase will woo ; 
1 ne courtier tells a finer taie. 

Bu'. -s his heart as true ? 

Tnese wild wood flowers I've pu'd, to deck 

That spotless breast o' thine : 
The courtiers' gems may witness love — 

But 'tis na love .ike mine. 



SONG. 

Altered from an old English one. 

It was the charming month of May, 
When all the flow'rs were fresh and gay, 
One morning, by the break of day, 
The yuuthful, charming Chloe ; 



From peaceful slumber she arose, 
Girt on her mantle and her hose, 
And o'er the flowery mead she goct, 
The youthful, charming Chloe. 

CHORUS. 

Lovely was she by the dawn, 

Youthful Chloe, charming Chloe, 

Tripping o'er the pearly lawn, 
The youthful, charming Chloe. 

The feather'd people you might see 
Perch 'd all around on every tree, 
In notes of sweetest melody, 
They hail the charming Chloe ; 

Till, painting gay the eastern skies 
The glorious sun began to rise, 
Out-rivall'd by the radiant eyes 
Of youthful, charming Chloe. 
Lovely was she, Sfc. 



LASSIE WI' THE LINT-WHITE LOCM. 

TUNE—" Rothemurchie'e Rant." 

CHORUS. 

Lassie wi' the lint-while locks, 

Bonnie lassie, artless lassie, 
Wilt IhouwV me tent the flocks, 

Wilt thou be my dearie, O i 

Now nature deeds the flowery lea, 
And a' is young and sweet like thee : 
O wilt thou share its joys wi'me, 
And say thou 'It be my dearie, O ? 
Lassie wi', &c. 

And when the welcome simmer-shower 
Has cheer'd ilk drooping little flower, 
We'll to the breathing woodbine bower 
At sultry noon, my dearie, O. 
Lassie wi', Sfc. 

When Cynthia lights, wi' silver ray, 
The weary shearer's hameward way ; 
Thro' yellow waving fields we'll stray, 
And talk o'love, my dearie, O. 
Lassie wi', !fe. 

And when the howling wintry blast 
Disturbs my lassie's midnight rest ; 
Enclasped to my faithfu' breast. 
I'll comfort thee, n,j dehrie, O. 

Lassie wi' the lint-white lock* . 

Bonnie lassie, artless lassie, 
O icilt thou wi' ?ne tent the flocks, 

Wilt thou be my dearie, O ! 



BURNS' POEMS. 



-97 



TUNE — " Naney's to the Greenwood," &c. 

FAREWELL thou stream that winding flows 
Around Eliza's dwelling ! 

mem'ry ! spare the cruel throes 
Within my bosom swelling : 

Condemn'd to drag a hopeless chain, 

And yet in secret languish, 
Tofeelafireinev'ry vain, 

Nor dare disclose my anguish. 

Love's veriest wretch, unseen, unknown, 

1 fain my griefs would cover: 
The burstingsigh, the' unweeting groan, 

Betray the hapless lover. 

1 know thou doom'st me to despair, 

Nor wilt, nor canst relieve me ; 
But oh, Eliza, hearoue prayer, 
For pity's sake forgive me. 

The music of thy voice I heard, 

Nor wist while it euslav'd me ; 
1 saw thine eyes, yet nothing fear'd, 

Till fears no more had sav'd me ; 
Th' unwary sailor thus aghast, 

The wheeling torrent viewing ; 
'Mid circling horrors smk at last 

In overwhelming ruin. 



TUNE—" The Sow's Tall." 

HE— O PHILLY, happy be that day 

When roving through the gather'd hay 
My youthfu' heart was stown away, 
And by thy charms, my Philly. 

SHE— Willy, ay I bless the grove 

Where first I own'd my maiden love, 
Whilst thou did pledge the Powers above 
To be my ain dear Willy. 

HE — As songsters of the early year 

Are ilka day mair sweet to hear, 
So ilka day to me mair dear 
And charming is my Philly. 

SHE— As on the brier the budding rose 

Still richer breathes, and fairer blows- 
So in my tender bosom grows 
The love I bear my Willy. 

H E— The milder sun and bluer sky, 

That crown my harvest cares wi' joy 
Were ne'er sae welcome to my eye 
As is a sight o' 1 hi lly . 

SHE — The little swallow's wanton wing, 
Tho' wafting o'er the flowery spring, 
Did ne'er to me sic tidings bring, 
As meeting o' my Willy. 



HE— The bee that thro' the sunny hour 
Sips nectar in the opening flower, 
Compar'd wi' my delight is poor, 
Upon the lips o' Philly. 

SHE— The woodbine in the dewy weet 

When evening shades in silence meet, 
Is nocht sae fragrant or sae sweet 
As is a kiss o' Willy. 

HE— Let fortune's wheel at random rin, 

And fools may tine, and knaves may wiu 
My thoughts are a' bound up in an«, 
And that's my ain dear Philly. 

SHE— What's a' the joys that gowd can gie ! 
I care nae wealth a single flie ; 
The lad I love's the lad for me, 
And that's my ain dear Willy. 

SONG. 

TUNE—" Lumps o' Pudding." 

CONTENTED wi' little, and cantlewi' mair, 

Whene'er I forgather wi' sorrow and care, 

I gie them askelp, as they're creepin alang, 

Wi' a cog o' guid swats, and an auld Scottish fang. 

I whyles claw the elbow o' troublesome Thought : 
But man is a soger, and life is a faught: 
My mirth and guid humour are coin in my pouca, 
And my freedom's my lardship nae monarch dar* 
touch. 

A towmond o' trouble, should that be my fa', 
A night o' guid fellowship sowthers it a' : 
When at the blithe end o' our journey at last, 
Wba the deil ever thinks o' the road he has past? 

Blind chance, let her snapper and stoyte on ber way ; 
Be't to me, be't frae me, e'en let the jade gae ; 
Come ease, or come travel ; come pleasure, or p^lr- 
My warst word is—" Welcome, and welcome again !" 



CANST THOU LEAVE ME THUS, MY" KATY / 



TUNE-" Roy's wife. 



CHORUS. 



Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy 1 
Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy ? 
Well thou know'st my aching heart, 
And canst thou leave me thus for pity 7 

Is this thy plighted, fond regard, 
Thus cruelly to part, my Katy I 

Is this thy faithful swain's reward— 
An aching, broken heart, my Katy? 
Canst thou, &c. 

Farewell ! and ne'er such sorrows tear 
--, T hat fickle heart of thine , my Katy I 
IS 



9S 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Yhou may 'st find those will lore thee dear— 
But not a love like'mine, my Katy. 
Canst thou, &c. 



MY NANNIES AWA. 
TUNE—" There'll never be peace." &c. 

Now in her green mantle blithe nature arrays, 
And listens the lambkins that bleat o'er the braes, 
While birds warbie welcome in ill:a green siiaw ; 
But to me it's delightless — my Nannie's awa. 

The snaw-drap and primrose our woodlands adorn, 
And violets bathe in tne weet o' the morn ; 
Thy pain my sad bosom sae sweetly they blaw, 
They mind me o' Nannie — and Nannie's awa. 

Thou lav'rock that springs frae the dews of the lawn, 
The shepherd to warn o' the gray-breaking dawn, 
And thou mellow mavis that hails the night-fa' 
(Tive over for pity — my Nannie' awa. 

Come autumn, sae peaaive, in yellow and gray, 
And sooth me wi' tiding o' nature's decay : 
The dark, dreary winter, and wild-driving snaw, 
Alane can delight me — now Nannie's awa. 



FOR A' THAT AND A' THAT. 

it there, for honest poverty, 

That hangs his head, and a' that ; 
The coward-slave, we pass him by, 

We dare be poor for a' that ; 
For a' that, and a' that, 

Our toil's obscuri, and a' that, 
The rank is but the guinea's stamp, 

The man's the gowd for a' that. 

What tho' on hamely fare we dine, 

Wear hoddin gray, and a* that ; 
Oie fools their silks, and knaves their wine 

A man's a man for a' that ; 
For a' that, and a' that, 

Their tinsel show, and a' that ; 
The honest man, though e'er sae poor, 

Is king o' men for a' that. 

Ye see yon birkie, ca'da lord, 

Wha struts, and stares, and a' that ; 
Tho' hundreds worship at his word, 

He's but a coof for a' that : 
For a' that, and a' that, 

His riband, star, and a' that, 
The man of independent mind, 

He looks and laughs at a' that. 

A prince can mak a belted knight, 

A marquis, duke, and a' that : 
But an honest man's aboon his might, 

Quid faith he maunafa' that ! 
For a' that, and a' that, 

Their dignities, ajid a' that 



The pith o' sense, and pride o' wortfc, 
Are higher ranks than a' that. 

Then let us pray that come it ma/, 

As come it will for a' that, 
That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth. 

May bear the gree, and a' that. 
For a' that, and a' that, 

It's coming yet, for a' that, 
That man to man, the warld o'er, 

Shall brothers be for a' that. 



SONG. 

TUNE—" Craigie-burn-wo 

SWEET fa's the eve on Craigie-burn, 
And blithe awakes the morrow, 

But a' the pride o' spring's return 
Can yield me nocht but sorrow. 

I see the flowers and spreading trees, 
I hear the wild birds singing : 

But what a weary wight can please, 
And care his bosom wringing? 

Fain, fain would I my griefs impart, 
Yet dare na for your anger : 

But secret love will break my heart, 
If I conceal it langer. 

If thou refuse to pity me, 

If thou shalt love auither, 
When yon green leaves fade frae the tn 

Around my grave they'll wimer. 



TUN! 



Let me in thisae nifbt.' 



O LASSIE, art thou sleeping yet? 
Or art thou wakin, I would wit ? 
For love has bound me hand and foot, 
And I would fain be in, jo. 

CHORUS. 

O let me in this ae night, 

This ae, ae, ae night ; 
For pity's sake this ae night, 

O rise and let me in, jo, 

Thou hears't the winter wind and weet, 
Nae sta- blinks thro' the driving sleet ; 
Tak pity on my weary feet, 
And shield me frae the rain, jo. 
O let me in, Sfc. 

The bitter blast that round me blaws 
Unheeded howls, unheeded fa's ; 
The cauldness o' thy heart's the cauae 
Of a' my grief and pain, jo. 
Olet me in.Src. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



HER ANSWER. 

O TELL name o' wind and rain, 
Upraid na me wi* cauld disdain I 
Gae back the gate ye cam again, 
I winna let you in, jo. 

CHORUS. 

I tell you now inut ae night. 

This ae, ae, ae night ; 
And once for a 1 thisae night, 

Iwinna let you in, jo. 

The snellest blast, at mirktst hours, 
That round the pathless wand'rer pours, 
Is nocht to what poor she endures, 
That's trusted faithless man, jo. 
I tell you now, Sfc. 

The sweetest flower that deck'd the mead, 
Kow trodden like the vilest weed ; 
Let simple maid the lesson read, 
The r;eird may be her aiii, jo, 
Itellyou now, ifc. 

The bird that charm'd his summer-day, 
Is now the cruel fowler's prey j 
Let witless, trusting woman say 
How aft her tale's the same, jo, 
I tell you now, Sfc. 



ADDRESS TO ' 



HE WOOD-LARK. 

Or, " Loch 



TUNE— " Where'll bonnie Ann lie. 
Eroch Side." 

O STAY, sweet warbling wood-lark stay, 
Nor quit for me the trembling spray, 
f hapless lover courts thy lay, 

Thy soothing, fond complaining. 

Again, again that tender part, 
That I may catch thy melting art ; 
For surely that wad touch her heart, 
Wha kills me wi' disdaining. 

Bay, was thy iittle mate unkind, 
And heard thee as the careless wind ? 
Oh, nocht but love and sorrow join'd 
Sic notes o' woe could wauken. 

Thou tells o' never-ending care ; 
O' speechless grief, and dark despair ; 
For pity's s?>e, sweet bird, nae mair 
Or my poor heart is broken I 



ON CHLORIS BEING ILL. 
TUNE— "Ay wakinO." 
CHORUS. 
Long, long the night, 
Heavy comes the morrow 



While my soul's delight, 
Is on her bed of sorrow. 

CAN I cease to care ? 

Can I cease to languish. 
While my darling fair 

Is on tho couch of anguish i 
Long, Ifc. 

Every hope is fled, 

Every fear is terror 
Slumber even I dread, 

Every dream is horror. 
Long, Sic. 

Hear me, Power's divine ! 

Oh, in pity hear me ! 
Take aught else of mine, 

But my Chloris spare me t 
Long, &.c. 



TUNE—" Humours of Glen." 

THEIR groves o' sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon, 
Where bright-beaming summers exalt the perfume, 
Par dearer to me yon lone glen o' green breckan, 
Wi' the burn stealing under the lang yellow broom. 

Par dearer to me are yon hnmble broom bowers, 
Where the blue-bell and gowan lurk lowly unseen : 

For there, lightly tripping amang the wild flower*, 
A-Kstening the linnet, aft wanders my Jean. 

Tho' rich is the breeze in their gay sunny valley*, 
And cauld Caledonia's blast on the wave ; 

Their sweet-scented woodlands that skirt the prood 
palace, 
What are they ? The haunt of the tyrant and slave I 

The slave's spicy forests, and gold bubbling fountain*, 
The brave Caledonian views wi' disdain ; 

He wanders as free as the winds of his mountains, 
Save love's willing fetters, the chains o' his Jean. 



TUNE—" Laddie, lie near me.' 

'TWAS na her bonnie blue e'e was my ruin ; 
Fair tho' she be, that was ne'er my undoing : 
'Twas the dear smile when naebody did mind us, 
'Twas the bewitching, sweet, stown glance o' kindne**. 

Sair do I fear that to hope is denied me, 
Sair do I fear that despair maun abide me ; 
But tho' fell fortune should fate us to sever, 
Queen shall she be in my bosom for ever. 

Mary, I 'm thine wi' a passion sincerest, 
And thou hast plighted me love o' the dearest, 



100 



BURNS' POEMS. 



And thou'rt the angel that never can alter, 
,Sooaar the sun in his motion would falter. 



ALTERED FROM AN OLD ENGLISH SONG. 
TUNE — " John Anderson my jo." 

How cruel are the parents 

Who riches only prize, 
And to the wealthy booby, 

Poor woman sacrifice. 
Meanwhile the hapless daughter 

Has but a choice of strife ; 
To shun a tyrant father's hate, 

Become a wretched wife. 

The ravening hawk pursuing, 

The trembling dove thus flies, 
To shun impelling ruin 

Awhile her pinions ti /es, 
Till of escape despairing, 

No shelter or retreat, 
She trusts the ruthless falconer, 

And drops beneath his feet. 



TUNE—" Deil takthe Wars." 

MARK yonder pomp of costly fasnion, 

Round the wealthy, titled pride : 
But when compar'd with real passion, 

Poor isa.l that princely pride. 

What are the showy treasures ? 

What are the noisy pleasures ? 
The gay, gaudy glare of vanity and art : 

The polish'd jewel's blaze 

May draw the wond'ring gaze, 

And courtly grandeur bright 

The fancy may delight, 
But never, never can come near the heart. 

But did you see my dearest Lliloris, 

In simplicity's array ; 
Lovely as yonder sweet opening flower is, 

Shrinking from the gaze of day. 

O, then, the heart alarming, 

And all resistless charming, 
In Love's deliglr.ful fetters she chains the willing soull 

Ambition would disown 

The world's imperial crown 

Even Avarice would deny 

His worshipp'd deity, 
And feel thro' every vein Love's raptures roll. 



SONG. 

TUNE— This is no my ain House. 

CHORUS. 
9 tkit it no my ain lassie, 
Fair tho' the lassie be ; 



O weel ken I my ain LimsU, 
Kind love is in her e'e. 

I SEE a form, I see a face, 
Ye weel may wi' the fairest place t 
It wants, to me, the witching grace, 
The kind love that's in her e'e. 
O this is no, Ire. 

She's bonnie, blooming, straight, anJ tall 
And laug has had my heart in thrall ; 
And ay it charms my very saul, 
The kind love that'3 in her e'e. 
O this is no, &c. 

A thief sae pawkie is my Jean, 
To steal a blink, by a' unseen ; 
But gleg as light are lovers' een, 
When kind love is in the e'e, 
O this is no, &c. 

It may escape the courtly sparks, 
It may escape the learned clerks; 
But weel the watching lover marks 
The kind love that's in her e'e. 
O this is no Sec. 



TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. 
SCOTTISH SONG. 

Now spring has clad the groves in greeo, 

And strew'd the lea wi' flowers ; 
The furrow'd, waving corn is seen 

Rejoice in fostering showers ; 
While ilka thingin nature join 

Their sorrows to forego, 
O why thus all alone are mine 

The weary steps of wo ! 

The trout within yon wimplin burn 

Glides swift, a silver dart, 
And safe beneath the shady thorn 

Defies the angler's art : 
My life was ance that careless stream. 

That wanton trout was I ; 
But love, wi' unrelenting beam, 

Has scorch'd my fountains dry. 

The little flow'ret's peaceful lot, 

In yonder cliff that grows, 
Which, save the linnet's flight, I wot 

Nae ruder visit knows, 
Was mini ; till love has o'er me past, 

And blighted a' my bloom, 
And now beneath the withering blast 

My youth and joys consume. 

The waken'd lav'rock warb* )g springs, 

And climbs the early sky, 
Winnowing blithe her dewy wings 

In morning's rosy eye ; 
As little reckt I sorrow's powei , 

Until the flowery snare 



BURNS' POEMS. 



101 



O' witching love, in luckless hour, 
Mads me the thrall o' care. 

O had my fate been Greenland anowa 

Or Afric's burning zone, 
Wi' man and nature leagu'd my foea, 

So Peggy ne'er I'd know ? 
The wretch whase doom is, M hope nae mair, 

What tongue his woes can tell I 
Within whase bosom, save despair, 

Nae kinder spirits dwell. 



SCOTTISHSONG. 

O BONNIE was yon rosy brier, 

That blooms sae farTrae haunt o' man ; 

And bonnie she, and ah, how dear 1 
It shaded fra the e'euin sun. 

The rosebuds in the morning dew, 
How pure amang the leaves sae green ; 

But purer was the lover's vow 
They witness'd in their shade yestreen. 

A in its rude and prickly power, 

That crimson rose, how sweet and fair I 

Dut love is far a sweeter flower 
Amid life's thorny path o' care. 

The pathless wild, and wimpling burn, 
Wi' Chloris in my arms, be mine ; 

And I, the world, nor wish, nor scorn, 
Its joys and griefs alike resign. 



WRITTEN on a blank leaf of a copy of his Poems 
presented to a Lady, whom he had often celebrated 
tmder the name of Chloris. 

'Tis Friendship's pledge, my young, <"iir Friend, 

Nor thou the gift refuse, 
Nor with unwilling ear attend 

The moralizing muse. 

Since, thou, in all thy youth and charms, 

Must bid vne world adieu, 
(A world 'gainst peace in constant arms) 

To join the friendly few. 

Since the gay morn of life o'ercast, 

Chill came the tempest's lower : 
( And ne'er misfortune's eastern blast 

Did nip a fairer flower.) 

Since thy gay scenes must charm no more, 

Still much is left behind ; 
Still nobler wealth has thou in store, 

The comforts of the mind ! 

Thine is the se.'f-approving glow, 

On conscious honour's part ; 
And, dearest gift of heaven below 

Thine friendship's truest heait. 



The joys refin'd of sense and taste. 

With every muse to rove : 
And doubly were the poet bleat 

These joys could he improve. 



ENGLISH SONG. 

TUNE—" Let me in this ae night.' 

FORLORN, my love, no comfort n«ar, 
Far, far from thee, I wande. here 
Far, far from thee, the fate severe 
At which I most repine, love. 

CHORUS. 

O wert thou, love, but near me, 
But near, near, near me ; 
How kindly thou wouldst cheer me, 
And mingle sighs with mine, love. 

Around me scowls a wintry sky, 
The blast each bud of hope and joy; 
And shelter, shade, nor home have I, 
Save in those arms of thine, love. 
O wert, l)'c. 

Cold, alter'd friendship's cruel part, 
To poison fortune's ruthless dart- 
Let me not break thy faithful heart, 
And say that fate is mine, love. 
O wert, Sec. 

B'U dreary tho' the moments fleet, 
let me think we yet shall meet 1 
That only tay of solace sweet 
Can on thy Chloris shine, love, 
Owert, Src. 



SCOTTISH BALLAD. 
TUNE—" The Lothian Lassie." 

LAST May a braw wooer cam down the lang glea. 

And sair wi' his love he did deave me ; 
I said there was naething I hated like men, 

The deuce gae wi'm, to believe me, believe me, 

The deuce gae wi'm, to believe me. 

He spak o' the darts in my bonnie black e'en, 
And vow 'd for my love he was dying ; 

I said he might die when he liked, for Jean, 
The Lord forgie me for lying, for lying, 
The Lord forgie me for lying ! 

A weel-stocked mailen, himself for the laird, 
And marriage aff-hand, were his proffers : 

I never loot on that I kenn'd it, or car'd, 
But thought I might hae waur offers, waur offers. 
But thought I might hae waur offers. 

But what wad ye think ? in a fortnight or leas 
The deil tak his taste to gae near her t 



102 



BURNS' POEMS. 



He up the lang loan to my black cousin Bess, 
Guess ye how, the jad! [could bear her, could bear 

her, 
G jess ye iiow, the jad I I could bear her. 

Bui a' the niest week as I fretted wi' care, 

I gaed to the tryste o' Dalgarnock, 
And wha but my fine fickle lover was there, 

I glowr'd as I'd seen a warlock, a warlock, 

1 glowr'd as I'd seen a warlock. 

But owre my left shouther I gae him a blink, 

Lest ueebors might say I was saucy ; 
My^wooer he caper'd as he'd been in drink, 

And vow'd I was his dear lassie, dear lassie, 

And vow'd I was his dear lassie. 

I spier'd for my cousin fn' couthy and sweet, 

Gin she had recover'd her hearin, 
And how her new shoon fit her auld shachl't feet, 

But, heavens ! how he fell a swearin, aswearin, 

But heavens ! how he fell as 



He begged, for Gudesake ! I wad be his wife, 
Or else I wad kill him wi' sorrow : 

Bo e'en to preserve the poor body in life, 

I think I maun wed him to-morrow, to-morrow, 
I think I maun wed him to-morrow. 



FRAGMENT. 
TUNE—" The Caledonian Hunt's Delight. 

WHY, why tell thy lover, 

Bliss he never must enjoy ! 
Why why undeceive him, 

And give all his hopes the lie ? 

O why, while fancy, raptur'd, slumbers \ 

Chloris, Chloris all the theme ; 
Why, why wouldst thou cruel, 

Wake thy lover from his dream ? 



HEY FOR A LASS WI' A TOCHER. 

TUNE — " Balinamona ora." 

AWA wi' your witchcraft o' beauty's alarms, 
The slender bit beauty you grasp in your arms : 
O, gie me the lass that has acreso' charms, 
O.izie me the lass wi'the weel stockit farms. 

CHORUS. 

Tlien hey, for a lass wi' a locker, then hey for a lass 

wi' a tocher, 
Tlien hey, for a lass nV a tocher ; the nice yellow 

guineas for me. 

Your beauty's a flower, in the morning that blows, 
And withers the faster, the faster it grows ; 



But the rapturous charm o' the bonnie green knowe*, 
Ilk spring they're nev- deckit wi' bonnie white yowes. 
Then hey, &c. 

And e'en when this beauty your bosom has blest, 
The brightest o' beauty may cloy, when possest ; 
But the sweet yellow darlings wi' Geordie imprest, 
The langer ye hae them — the mair they're carest. 
Then hey, &c. 



SONG 

TUNE—" Here's a health to them that's a wa, hiney.' 

CHORUS. 

Here's a health to one Ilo'e dear, 

Here's ahealth to ane Ilo'e dear 

Tliou art sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet, 

And soft as their par ting tear — Jessy.' 

ALTHO' thou maun never be mine, 

Altho' even hope is denied ; 
'Tis sweeter for thee despairing, 

Thau aught in the world beside — Jessy I 
Here's a health, &c. 

I mourn thro' the gay, gaudy day, 
As, hopeless, I muse on thy charms ; 

But welcome the dream o' sweet sluirber, 
For then 1 am lockt in thy arras— Jessy t 
Here's a health, &c. 

I guess by the dear angel's smile, 

I guess by the love-rolling e'e ; 
But why urge the tender confession 

'Gainst fortune's fell cruel decree— Jessy 1 
Here's a health, &c. 



TUNE—" Rothermurchies'i Rant. ' 
CHORUS. 

Fairest maid on Devon banks, 
Crystal Devon, winding Devon, 

Wilt thnu lay that frown aside, 
And smile as tliou were wont to do? 

PULL well thou know'st I lore thee dear, 

Couldst thou to malice lend an ear ! 

O, did not love exclaim, " Forbear, 

Nor use a faithful lover so ?" 

Fairest maid, Sfc. 

Then come, thou fairest of the fair, 
Those wonted smiles, O. let me share ; 
And by ihy beauteous self! swear, 
No love but thine my heart shall know. 
Fail est maid, Src. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



103 



THE BIRKS OF ABERFELDY. 

Bonnie lassie, will ye go, will ye go, will ye go, 
Bonnie lassie, will ye go to the birksoj Aberfeldy? 

Now simmer blinks on flowery braes, 
And o'er the crystal streamlet plays, 
Come 'let ua spend die lightsome days, 
In the Birks of Aberfeldy. 

Bonnie lassie, IfC. 

While o'er their heads the hazels hing, 
The little birdies blyt'ily sing, 
Or lightly flit on wanton wing 
In the Birks of Abet t'eldy. 

Bonnie lassie, &c. 

The braes ascend like lofty wa's, 
The foaming stream ueep-roaring fa's, 
O'er-hung wi' fragrant spreading shawl, 
The Birks of Aberfeldy. 

Bonnie lassie, &c. 

The hoary cliffs are crown'd wi' flowers, 
White o'er the linns the burnie pours, 
And rising, weets wi' misty showers 
The Birks of Aberfeldy. 

Bonnie lassie, &c. 

Let fortune's gifts at random flee, 
They ne'er shall draw a wish frae me, 
Supremely blest wi' love aud thee, 
In the Birks of Aberfeldy. 

Bonnie lassie, Sfc. 



STAT, MY CHARMER, CAN YOU LEAVE ME i 

TUNE— "An Gilledubh ciar-dhubh." 

STAY, my charmer, can you leave me ? 

Cruel, cruel to deceive me ! 

Well you know how much you grieve me ; 

Cruel charmer, can you go ? 

Cruel charmer, can you go? 

By my love so ill requited : 

By the faith you fondly plighted ; 

By the pangs of lovers slighted ; 

Do not, do not leave me so 1 

Do not, do not leave UW so ! 



STRATHALLAN'S LAMENT. 

THICKEST night o'erhangmy dwelling ! 

Howling tempest o'er me rave 1 
Turbid torrents, wintry swelling, 

Still surround my lonely cave 1 



Crystal streamlets, gently flowing 
Busy haunts of base mankind, 

Western breezes, softly blowing, 
Suit not my distracted mind. 



In the cause ofright engaged, 
Wrongs injurious to redress, 

Honour's war we strongly waged, 
But the heavens deny 'd success. 

Ruin's wheel has driven o'er us, 
Noi a hope that dare attend, 

The wide world is all before us — 
But a world without a friend ! 



THE YOUNG HIGHLAND ROVER 
TUNE—" Morag." 

LOUD blaw the frosty breezes, 

The snaws the mountains cover; 
Like winter on me seizes, 

Since my young Highland Rover 
Far wanders nations over. 
Where'er he go, where'er he stray, 

May Heaven be his warden : 
Return him safe to fair Strathspey, 

Aud bonnie Castle-Gordon ! 

The trees now naked groaning, 
s;;all soon wi' leaves be hinging, 

The birdies dowie moaning, 
Shall a' be blithly singing, 
And every flower be springing. 
Sae I'll rejoice the lee-lang day, 
When by his mighty warden 

My youth's return'd to fair Strathspey. 
And bonnie Castle-Gordon. 



RAVING WINDS AROUND HER BLOWING. 

TUNE—" M'Grigor of Ruaro's Lament. 1 " 

RAVING winds around her blowing, 
Yellow leaves the woodlands strowing, 
By a river hoarsely roaring, 
Isabella stray'd deploring. 
" Farewell, hours that late did measure 
Sunshine days of joy and pleasure ; 
Hail, thou gloomy night of sorrow, 
Cheerless night that knows no morrow. 

t' O'er the past too fondly wandering, 
On the hopeless future pondering ; 
Chilly grief my life-blood freezes, 
Fell despair my fancy seizes, 
Life, thou soul of every blessing, 
Load to misery most distressing, 
O how gladly I'd resign thee, 
And to dark oblivion join thee 1 



MUSING ON THE ROARING 
TUNE—" Druimion dubh 



MUSING on the roaring ocean, 
Which divides my love and me ; 



104 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Wearying Heaven in warm dcvotit 
For his weal where'er he be. 

Hope and fear's alternate billow 
Yielding late to nature's law ; 

Whisp' ring spirits round ray pillov 
Talk of him that's far awa. 

Ye whom sorrow never wounded, 
Ye who never shed a tear, 

Care-untroubled, joy-surrounded, 
Gaudy day to you is dear. 

Gentle night, do thou befriend me 
Downy sleep, the curtain draw ; 

Spirits kind, again attend me, 
Talk of lum that's far awa I 



BLITHE WAS SHE. 

Blithe, blithe and merry was she, 
Blithe was she but and ben : 

Blithe by the banks of Ern, 
And blithe in Glenturit glen. 

BY Oughtertyre grows the aik, 

On Yarrow banks, the birken shaw J 

But Phemie was a bonnier lass 
Than braes o' Yarrow ever saw. 
Blithe, tfc. 

Her looks were like a flower in May, 
Her smile was like a simmer morn J 

She tripped by the banks of Ern, 
As light's a bird upon a thorn. 
Blithe, tfc. 

Her bonuie face it was as meek 

As ony lamb upon a lee ; 
The evening sun was ne'er sae sweet 

As was the blink o' Phemie's e'e. 
Blithe, &c 

The Highland hills I've wander'd wide, 
And o'er the Lowlands I hae been ; 

But Phemie was the blithest lass 
That ever trod the dewy green. 
Blithe, &c. 



A ROSE-BUD BY MY EARLY WALK. 

A ROSE-BUD by my early walk, 
Adown a corn-enclosed bawk, 
Sae gently bent its thorny stalk 
All on a dewy morning. 

Ere twice the shades o' dawn are fled, 
In a' its crimson glory spread, 
And drooping rich the dewy head , 
It scents the early morning. 

Within the bush, her covert nest 
A little linnet fondly prest, 



The dew sat chilly on her breast 
Sae early in the morning; 

She soon shall see her tender brood, 
The pride, the pleasure o' the wood, 
Amang the fresh green leaves bedew'd. 
Awake the early morning. 

So thou, dear bird, young Jeany fair, 
On trembling string or vocal air, 
Shall sweetly pay the tender care 
That tents thy early morning. 

So thou, sweet rose-bud, young and gar, 
Shalt beauteous blaze upon the day, 
And bless the parent's evening ray 
That watch'd thy early morning. 



WHERE BRAVING ANGRY WINTEU 
STORMS. 

TUNE—" N. Gow's Lamentation for 
Abercairny." 

WHERE braving angry winter's storm*. 

The lofty Ochils rise, 
Far in their shade my Fegscy's charm* 

First blest my wondering eyes. 
As one who by 3ome savage stream, 

A lonely gem surveys, 
Astonish *d, doubly marks its beam, 

With art's most polish'd blaze. 

Blest be the wild, sequester'd shade, 

And blest the day and hour, 
Where Peggy's charms I first Burvey'd, 

When first 1 felt that pow'r 1 
The tyrant death with grim control 

May seize my fleeting breath ; 
But tearing Pegey from my soul 

Must be a stronger death. 



TIBBIE, I HAE SEEN THE DAY 
TUNE—" Invercald's Reel." 

CHORUS. 

O Tibbie, I hae seen the day, 
Ye would nac been sae shy ; 

For laik o' gear ye lightly me. 
But, trowth, I care na by, 

YESTREEN I met you on themocr, 
Ye 6pak na, but gaed by like stoure : 
Ye geek at me because I'm poor, 
But feint a hair care I. 



O Tibbie, I hae, Ifc. 



I doubt na, lass, but ye may think, 
Because ye hae the name o' clink, 



BURNS' POEMS. 



105 



That ye can pleaie me at a wink, 
Whene'er ye like to try. 
O Tibbie, lhae,l(c. 

But sorrow tak him that's sae mean, 
Altho' his pouch o' coin were clean, 
Wha follows ony saucy queen 
That looks sae proud and high. 
O Tibbie, I hae, tfc. 

Altho' a lad were e'er sae smart 
If that he want the yellow dirt, 
Ye'll cast your head anither airt, 
And answer him fu' dry. 
O Tibbie, I hae, If c. 

But if he hae the name o' gear, 

Ye'll fasten to him like a briar, 

Tho' hardly he for sense orlear, 

Be better than the kye. 

O Tibbie, I hae, Ifc. 

But, Tibbie, lass, tak my advice, 
Your daddie's gear maks you sae nice ! 
Thedeil a ane wad spier your price, 
Were ye as poor as I. 
O Tibbie, I hae, Ifc. 

There lives a lass in yonder park, 
I would na gie her in her sark, 
For thee wi' a' thy thousand mark : 
Ye need na look sae high. 
O Tibbie, I hae, &.c. 



CLARINDA. 

CLARINDA, mistress of my soul, 
The measur'd time is run ! 

The wretch beneath the dreary pole, 
So marks his latest sun, 

To what dark cave of frozen night 

Shall poor Sylvanderhie ; 
Depriv'd of thee, his life and light, 

The sun of all his joy. 

We part — but by these precious drops 

That fill thy lovely eyes ! 
No other light shall guide my steps 

Till thy bright beams arise. 

She, the fair sun of all her sex 
Has blest my glorious day : 

And shall a glimmering planet fix 
My worship to its ray ? 



THE DAY RETURNS, MY BOSOM BURNS. 



TUNE—" Seventh of November.' 



THE day returns, my bo3om burns, 
The blissful day we twa did meet, 



E 2 



Tho' winter wild in tempest toil'd, 
Ne'er summer-sun was half sae sweet. 

Than a' the pride that loads the tide, 
And crosses o'er the sultry line : 

Than kingly robes, than crown? 3rd globes, 
Heaven gave me more — it made thee mine. 

While day and night can bring delight, 

Or nature aught of pleasure give ; 
While joys above, my mind can move, 

For thee, and thee alone, I live I 
When that grim foe of life below 

Comes in between to make us part ; 
The iron hand that breaks our band, 

It breaks my bliss, — it breaks my heart. 



THE LAZY MIST. 

THE lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill, 
Concealing the course of the dark winding rill ; 
How languid the scenes, late so sprightly, appear 
As autumn to winter resigns the pale year 1 
The forests are leafless, the meadows are bro 
And all the gay foppery of summer is fl j wn ; 
Apart let me wander, apart let me muse, 
How quick time i3 flying, how keen fate pursues | 
How long I have liv'd — but how much liv'd in vain | 
How little of life's scanty span may remain : 
What aspects, old Time, in his progress, has WOIT 
What ties, cruel fate in my bosom has torn. 
How foolish, or worse, till our summit is gain'd I 
And downward, how weaken'd, how darken'a 

pain'd ! 
This life's not worth having with an it can give, 
For something bevond it poor man sure must live 



O, WERE I ON PARN.4SSUS' HILL! 

TUNE—" My love is lost to me." 

O, WERE I on Parnassus' hill 1 
Or had of Helicon my fill ; 
That I might catch poetic skill, 

To sing how dear I love thee, 
But Nith maun be my muse's well, 
My muse maun be thy bonnie sel ; 
On Corsincon I'll glower and spell, 

And write how dear 1 love thee. 

Then come sweet muse, inspire my lay I 
For a' the lee-lang simmer's day, 
1 coudna sing, I coudna say, 

How much, how dear I love thee. 
I see thee dancing o'er the green, 
Thy waist sae jimp, thy limbs sae clean, 
Thy tempting lips, thy rcguisheen — 

By heaven and earth I love thee ! 

By night, by day, a-field, at hame. 
The thoughts o' thee my breast inflame ; 
And ay I muse and sing thy name, 
I onlv live to love thee. 



106 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Tho' I were doom'd to wander on 
Beyond the sea, beyond the sun, 
Till my last wearv sand was run 
Till then- -and then I love thee. 



I LOVE MY JEAN. 
TUNE—" Miss Admiral Gordon's Strathspey. 

OF a' the airts the wind can blaw. 

I dearly like the west, 
Tor there the bonnie lassie lives, 

The lassie I lo'ebcst : 
There wild woods prow und rivers row, 

And mony a hill between ; 
But day and night my fancy's flight 

Is everwi' my Jean. 



1 see her in the dewy flowers. 

I see her sweet and fair : 
I hear her in the tunefu' birds, 

I hear her charm the air : 
There's not a bonnie flower that springs, 

By fountain, shaw, or green, 
There's not a bonnie bird that sings, 

But minds me o' my Jean. 



THE BRAES 0' BALLOCHM^ LE. 

THE Catrine woods were yellow seen, 

The flowers decay'd on Catrine lee, 
Vae lav'rocksangon hillock green, 

But nature sicken'd on the e'e. 
Thro' faded grove Maria sang, 

Hersel in beauty's bloom the while, 
And ay the wild-wood echoes rang, 

Fareweel the braes o' Ballochmyle. 

Low in your wintry beds, ye flowers, 

Again ye'll flourish fresh and fair : 
Ye birdies dump, in withering bowers, 

Again ye'll charm the vocal air. 
But here, alas ! for me nae mair 

Shall birdie charm, or floweret smile ; 
Fareweel the bonnie banks of Ayr, 

Fareweel fareweel! sweet Ballochmyle. 



WILLIE BREW'D A PECK O' MAUT. 

O, WILLIE brew'd a peck o' maut, 

And Rob and Allan came to see ; 
Three blither hearts, that lee-Iang night, 

Ye wad na find in Christendie. 

We are nafou, we're na that fou, 
But just a drapyne in our e'e ; 

The cock may craw , the day may daw 
Arid ay we'll taste the barley bree, 



Here are we met, three merry boys, 
Three merry boys I trow arft we ; 



And mony a night we've merry been, 
And mony mae we hope to be ! 
We are nae fou, tec 

It is the moon, I ken her horn) 

That's blinkin in the lift sae hie ; 
She shines sae bright to wyle us hame 
But, by my sooth, she'll wait a wee J 
We are nae fou, Sec. 

Wha first shall rise to gang awa, 

A cuckold, coward loon is he ! 

Wha last beside his chair shall fa', 

He is the king amang us three 

We are nae fou, Sec 



THE BLUE-EYED LASSIE. 

I GAED a waefu' gate yestreen, 

A gate, I fear I '1. dearly rue ; 
I gat my death frae twa sweet een, 

Twa lovely een o' bonnie oiue. 
'Twas not her golden ringlets bright ; 

Her lips like roses wat wi' dew, 
Her heaving bosom, lily-white ; — 

It was her een sae bonnie blue. 

She talk'dshe smil'd, my heart she wyl'd, 

She charm'd my soul I wist na how ; 
And ay the stound the deadly wound, 

Cam frae her een sae bonnie blue. 
But spare to speak, and spare to speed ; 

She'll aiblins listen to my vow : 
Should she refuse, I'll lay my dead 

To her twa een 6ae bonnie blue. 



THE BANKS OF NITH. 
TUNE—" Robie Dona Gorach." 
THE Thames flows proudly to the sea, 

Where royal cities stately stand ; 
But sweeter flows the Nith to me, 

Where Comm'ms ance had high command) 
When shall I see that honour'd land, 

That winding stream I love so dear! 
Must wayward fortune's adverse hand 

For ever, ever keep me here i 

Now lovely, Nith, thy fruitful vales, 

Where spreading hawthorns gaily bloom; 
How sweetly wind thy sloping dales, 

Where lambkins wanton thro' the broom 1 
Tho' wandering now, must be my doom, 

Far from thy bonnie banks andbraee, 
May there my latest hours consume, 

Amang the friends of early days I 



JOHN ANDERSON MY JO. 



JOHN ANDERSON my jo, John, 
When we were first acquent ; 



BURNS' POEMS. 



J 07 



Your locks were like the raven, 
Your bon me brow wis brent ; 

But now your brow is bald, John, 
Your locks are like the snaw ; 

But blessings on your frosty pow, 
John Anderson my jo. 

John Anderson my jo, John, 

We clamb the hill thegither ; ■ 
And mony a canty day, John, 

We've had wi' ane anither : 
Now we maun totter down, John 

But hand and hand we'll go, 
And sleep thegither at the foot, 

John Anderson my jo. 



TAM GLEN. 

MY heart is a-breaking, dear Tittie, 
Some counsel unto me come len', 

To anger them a' is a pity ; 
But what will I do wi' Tarn Glen ? 

I'm thinlrin, wi' sic a braw fellow, 
In poortith f might mak a fen' ; 

What care I in riches to wallow, 
If I maunnb. marry Tarn Glen? 

There's Lowrie the laird o' Drummeller, 
"Guid day to you, brute," he comes ben : 

He brags and he blaws o' his siller, 
But when will he dance like Tam Glen ? 

My minnie does constantly deave me, 
And bids me beware o' young men ; 

They flatter, she says, to deceive me : 
Bnt wha can think sae o' Tam Glen ? 

My daddiesays, gin I'll forsake him, 
He'll gieme guid hunder marks ten : 

But, if it'sordain'd I maun tak him, 
O wha will I get but Tam Glen ? 

Yestreen at the Valentine's dealing, 
My heart to my mou gied a sten ; 

Por thrice I drew ane without failing, 
And thrice it was written, Tam Glen. 

The last Halloween I was waukin 
My droukit savk-sleeve, as ye ken 

His likeness cam up the house staukin 
And the very gray breeks o' Tam Glen I 

Come counsel, CearTittie, don't tarry ; 

I'll gie you my bonnie black hen, 
Cif ye will advise me to marry 

The lad I io'e dearly, Tam Glen. 



MY TOCHER'S THE JEWEL. 



MEIKLE thinks my luve o' my beauty, 
And meikle uttuffs my luve o' my kin ; 



But little thinks my luve T ken brawlie, 
My Tocher's the jewel has charms for him. 

It's a' for the apple he'll nourish the tree ; 
It's a' for the hiney he'll cherish the bee ; 

My laddie's sae meikle in luve wi' the siller, 
He canna hae luve to spare for me. 

Your proffer o' hive's an airl-penny, 

My Tocher's the bargain ye wad buy ; 
But an ye be crafty, I am cunnin, 

Sae ye wi' anither your fortune may try. 
Ye're like to the trimmer o' yon rotten wood, 

Ye'll like to the bark o' yon rotten tree, 
Ye'll slip frae me like a knotless thread, 

And ye'll crack your credit wi' mae nor me. 



THEN GUIDWIFE COUNT THE LAW1N 

GANE is the day, and mirk '3 the night, 
But we'll ne'er stray for fante o' light, 
For ale and brandy's stars and moon, 
And bluid-red wine's the rysin sun. 

Then guidwife count the latoin, the lawin, the latetn, 
Then guidwife count the lawin, and bring a ooggit 



There's wealth and ease for gentlemen, 
And semple-folk maun fecht and fen' ; 
But here we're a'. in ae accord, 
For ilka man that's drunk's a lord. 

Then guidwife count, tu. 

My coggie is a haly pool, 

That heals the wounds 0' care and dool ; 

And pleasure is a wanton trout, 

An' ye drink it a' ye'll find him out. 

Then guidwife count, See. 



WHAT CAN A YOUNG LASSIE DO WI» 
AN AULD MAN? 

WHAT can a young lassie, what shall a young laMie, 
What can a young lassie do wi' an auld man ? 

Bad luck on the pennie that tempted my minnie 
To sell her poor Jenny for siller an' Ian' ! 

Bad luck on the pennie. Sic. 

He's always compleenin frae mornin to e'enin, 
He hosts and he hirples the weary day lang ; 

He'sdoylt and he's dozen, his bluid it is frozen, 
O' dreary's the night wi' a ciazy auld man ! 

He hums and he hai;ker9, he frets, and he canker*, 
I never can please him, do a' that I can ; 

He's peevish and jealous of a' the young fellows : 
O, dool on the day I metwi' an' auld man 1 

My auld auntie Katie upon me taks pity 
I '11 do my endeavour to follow her plan ; 

I'll cross him, and wrack him, until I heart-break him, 
And then his auld bras 3 will buy me a new pas. 



108 



BURNS' POEMS 



THE BONIE WEE THING. 

BONNIE wee thing, cannie wee thing, 
Lovely wee thing, wast thou mine, 

I wad wear thee in my bosom, 
Lest my jewel I should tine. 

Wishfully 1 look and languish 

In that bonnie face o' thine ; 
And my heart it stounds wi anguish, 

Lest my wee thing be na mine. 

Wit, and grace, and love, and beauty, 

In ae constellation shine ; 
To adore thee is my duty, 

Goddess o' this soulo' mine 

Bonnie wee, 4c. 



O, FOR ANE AND TWENTY, TAM! 
TUNE—" The Moudiewort." 

An O, for one and twenty, Tam ! 

An hey, sweet ane and twenty, Tarn ! 
I'll learn my kin ratling sang, 

An I saw ane and twenty, Tarn. 

THEY snool me sair, and hand me down, 
And gar me look like bluntie, Tarn I 

But three short years will soon wheel roun', 
And then comes ane and twenty, Tam 1 
An 0,for ane,tfc. 

A gleib o' Ian', a claut o' gear, 
Was left me by my auntie, Tam ; 

At kith or kin I needna spire, 
And I saw ane and twenty, Tam ! 

An O, for ane SfC, 

They'll hae me wed a wealthy coof, 

Tho' I mysel' hae plenty, Tam ; 
But hear'st thou laddie there's my loof, 

I'm thine at ane and twenty, Tam ! 

An O, for ane, Sfc. 



BESS AND HER SPINNING WHEEL. 

O LEEZE me on my spinning wheel, 
O leeze me on my rock and reel ; 

Frae tap totaethat deeds my bien, 
And haps me fiel and warm at e'en ! 
I'll set me down and sing and spin, 
While laigh descends the simmer sun, 
Blest wi' content, and milk and meal — 
O leeze me on my spinning wheel. 

On ilka hand the burnies trot, 
And meet below my theekit cot; 
The scented birk and hawthorn white 
Across the pool their arms unite, 
Alike to screen the birdie's nest, 
And little fishes' callerrcst : 
The sun blinks kindly in the biel', 
Where blith I turn my spinning wheel. 



On lefty aiks the cushats wail, 
And echo cons the doolfu 1 tale, 
The lintwhites in the hazel braes, 
Delighted, rival ither'slays : 
The craik amang the claver hay, 
The patrick whirrin o'er the ley, 
The swallow jinkin round my shiel 
Amuse me at my spinning wheel. 

Wi' sma' to sell, and less to buy, 
Aboon distress, below envy, 
O wha wad leave this humble state, 
For a' the pride of a' the great ? 
Amid their flaring, idle toys, 
Amid their cumbrous, dinsome Joys, 
Can they peace and pleasure feel 
Of Bessy at her spinning wheel? 



COUNTRY LASSIE. 



In simmer when the hay was mawn, 

And corn wav'd green in ilka fieW, 
While claver blooms white o'er the let 

And roses blaw in ilka bield ; 
Blithe Bessie in the milking shiel, 

Says, I'll be wed, come o't what will : 
Out spak a dame in wrinkled eild, 

" O'guid advisement comes naeill, 

" It's ye hae wooers mony ane, 

And lassie, ye're but young ye ken : 
Then wait a wee, and cannie wale, 

And routhie but, a routhie ben : 
There's Johnie o' the Buskie-glen, 

Fu' is his barn, fu' is his byre ; 
Tak this frae me, my bonnie hen, 

It's plenty beets the luver's fire.'' 

For Johnie o' the Buskie-glen, 

I dinna care a single flie ; 
He lo'es sae well his craps and kye, 

He has nae luve to spare for me : 
But blithe's the blink o' Robbie's e'e, 

And weel I wat he lo'es me dear : 
Ae blink o' him I wad na gie 

For Buskie-glen and a' his gear. 

" O thoughtless lassie, life's a faught ; 

The canniest gate, the strife is sair ; 
But ay fu' han't is fechtin best, 

A hungry care's an unco care : 
But some will spend, and some will spare, 

An' wilfu' folk maun hae their will ; 
Syne as ye brew, my maiden fair, 

Keep mind that ye maun drink the y*U .' 

O, gear will buy me rigs o' land, 

And gear will buy me sheep and kye ', 
But the tender heart o' leesome luve, 

The gowd and siller canna buy : 
We may be poor — Robieandl, 

Light is the burden luve lays on ; 
Content and luve brings peace and \qv . 

What mair hae queens upon a thione / 



BURNS' POEMS. 



109 



FAIR ELIZA. 
A GAELIC AIR. 

TURN again, tnou fair Eliza, 

Ae kinJ blink before we part, 
Rew on thy despairing lover ! 

Canst thou break his faithfu' heart? 
Turn again, thou fair Eliza ; 

If to love thy heart denies. 
For pity hide the cruel sentence 

Under friendship's kind dii 



Thee, dear maid, hae I offended ? 

The offence is loving thee : 
Canst thou wreck his peace for ever, 

Whafor thine wad gladly die ? 
While the life beats in my bosom, 

Thou shalt mix in ilka throe : 
Turn again, thou lovely maiden, 

Ae sweet smile on me bestow. 

Not the bee upon ihe blossom, 

In the pride o' sinny noon ; 
Not the little sporting fairy, 

All beneath the simmer moon ; 
Not the poet in the moment 

Fancy lightens on his e'e, 
Kens the pleasure, feels the rapture 

That thy presence gits to me. 



THE POSIE. 

O LUVE will Tenture in, where it daur na weel be 
seen, 

luve will venture in, where wisdom ance has been ; 
But I will down yon river rove, amang the wood sae 

green, 
A nd a' to pu' a posie to my ain dear May. 

The primrose I will pu', U* firstling o' the year, 
And I will pu' the pink, t*._- emblem o' my dear, 
For she's '.he pink o' worc4*Aind, and blooms without 
a peer ; 
And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 

I'll pu' the budding rose when Phcebus peeps in view, 
For it's like a baumy kiss o' her sweet bonnie mou ; 

1 he hyacinth 's for constancy wi' its unchanging blue, 
And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 

The lily it is pure, and the lily it is fair, 
Ami in her lovely bosom I'll place the lily there ; 
The daisy's for simplicity and unaffected air 
And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 

The hawthorn I will pu', wi' its locks o' siller gray, 
Where, like an aged man, it stands at break o' day, 
But the songster's nest within the bush I winna tak 
away; 
And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 

The woodbine I will pu' when the e'enin^star is near, 
And the iliamoud-draps o' dew shall be her een sae 
clear : 



The violet's for modesty which weel she Vs to wur, 
And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 

I'll tie the posie round wi' the silken band of lave, 
And I'll place it in her breast, and I'll swear bys,' 

above, 
That to my latest draught o' life the band shall ns'sr 
remuve, 
And this will be a posie to my ain dear May. 



THE BANKS 0' DOON. 

YE banks and braes o' bonnie Doon, 

How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair ; 
How can ye chant, ye little birds, 

And I sae weary, fu' o' care ! 
Thou'lt break my heart, thou warbling bird, 

That wantons thro*the flowering thorn : 
Thou minds me o' deflKrted joys, 

Departed never to return. 

Oft hae I rov'd by bonnie Doon, 

To see the rose and woodbine twine ; 
And ilka bird sang o' its luve, 

And fondly sae did 1 o' mine. 
Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose, 

Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree: 
But my fause luver stole my rose, 

But ah ! he left the thorn wi 1 me. 



TUNE—" Catha*«l Ogie." 

YE flowery banks o' bonnie Doon, 

How can ye Uume sae fair, 
How can ye chant, ye little birds, 

And I sae fu' o' care ! 

Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie L\ 
That sings upon the bough ; 

Thou minds me o' the happy days 
When my fause luve was true. 

Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bl 

That sings beside thy mate ; 
For sae I sat, and sae I sang, 

And wist nao' myfate. 

Aft hae I rov'd by bonnie Doon, 
To see the woodbine twine, 

And ilka bird sango' its love, 
And sae did I o' mine. 

Wi' lightsome heart [ pn'd arose, 

Frae adits thorny tree, 
And my fause luver slaw the rose, 

But left the thorn wi' me. 



SIC A WIFE AS WILLIE HAD. 

WILLIE Wastle dwalt on Tweed, 
The spot they ca'd it Linkumdoddie 



10 

Willie wag a r ^bster guid, 
Cou'd itcwn a clue wi ony bodie ; 

He had a wife was dour and din, 
Tinkler Madgie was her raither ; 

Sic a wife as Willie had, 

I wad na gie a button for her. 

She has an e'e, she has but ane, 
The cat has twa the very colour ; 

Five rusty teeth, forbye a stump, 
A clapper tongue wad deave a miller ; 

A whisken beard about her mou, 
Her nose and chin they threaten ither j 
Sic a wife, If c. 

She's bow-hough'd, she's hein-shinn'd, 
Ae limpin leg a hand-breed shorter ; 

She's twisted right, she's twisted left, 
To balance fair in ilka quarter : 

She has a hump upon her breast* 
The twin o' that upon her shouther ; 
Sic a wife, fyc. 

Auld baudrans by the ingle sits, 
An' wi' her loof her face a-washin ; 

But Willie's wife is naesae trig, 
She dights her grunzie wi' a hushion ; 

Her walie nieves like middea-creels, 
Her face wad fyle the Logan-Water : 

Sic a wife as Willie had, 

I wad nae gie a button for her. 



GLOOMY DECEMBER. 

ANCE mair I hail thee, thou gloomy December ! 

Ance mair I hail thee, wi' sorrow and care ; 
Sad was the parting thou makes me remember, 

Parting wi' Nancy, Oh ! ne'er to meet mair. 
Fond lovers' parting is sweet painful pleasure, 

Hope beaming mild on the soft parting hour ; 
But the dire feeling, O farewell for ever, 

Is anguish unmingled and agony pure. 

Wild as the winter now tearing the forest, 

Till the last leaf o' the summer is flown, 
Such is the tempest has shaken my bosom, 

Since my last hope and last comfort is gone ; 
Still as I hail thee, thou gloomy December, 

Still shall I hail thee wi' sorrow and care ; 
For sad was the parting thou makes me remember, 

Parting wi' Nancy, Oh, ne'er to meet mair. 



WILT THOU BE MY DEARIE? 

WILT thou be my dearie ? 

When sorrow wrings thy gentle heart, 
O wilt thou let me cheer thee ? 

By the treasure of my soul, 
And that 's the love I bear thee ! 

I swear and tow, that only thou 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Shall ever be my dearie. 

Only thou, I swear and TOlT, 
Shall ever be my dearie. 

Lassie, say thou lo'es me ; 

Or if thou wilt na be my ain, 
Say na thou'lt refuse me : 

Ifit winna, canna be, 
Thou for thine may choose me \ 

Let me, lassie, quickly die, 
Trusting that thou lo'es me. 

Lassie, let me quickly die, 
Trusting that thou lo'es me. 



SHE'S FAIR AND FAUSE. 

SHE'S fair and fause that causes my smart, 

I lo'ed her meikle and lang ; 
She's broken her vow, she's broken my heart 

And I may e'en gae hang. 
A coof cam in wi' rowth o' gear, 
And I hae tint my dearest dear, 
But woman is but warld's gear, 

Sae let the bonnie lass gang. 

Whae'er ye be that woman love, 

To this be never blind, 
Nae ferlie 'tis tho' fickle she prove, 

A woman has't by kind : 
woman lovely, woman fair ! 
An angel's form's faun to thy share, 
'Twad been o'er rneikle to gien thee mair, 

I mean an angel mind. 



AFTON WATER. 

FLOW gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braei, 
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise ; 
My Mary's asleep by the murmuring stream, 
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream. 

Thou stock-dove whose echo resounds thro' the glen- 
Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den, 
Thou green-crested lap-wing, thy screaming forbear, 
I charge you disturb not my slumbering fair. 

How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighbouring hills, 
Farmark'd wi' courses of clear winding rills ; 
Theie daily I wander as noon rises high, 
My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye. 

How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below, 
Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow ; 
There, oft, as mild evening weeps over the lea, 
The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me. 

Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lofty it glides, 
And winds by the cot where my Mary resides ; 
How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave, 
As gathering sweet flowerets she stems thy clear wave 

Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, 
Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays ; 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Ill 



My Mary's asleep by the murmuring stream, 
Flow gently, sweet Aftou, disturb not her dream. 



BONNIE BELL. 

THE smiling spring comes in rejoicing, 

And surly winter grimiy flies :' 
Now crystal clear are the falling waters, 

And bonnie blue are the sunny skies, 
Fresh o'er the mountains break forth the morning, 

The ev'ning gilds the ocean's swell ;- 
All creatures joy in the sun's returning, 

And I rejoice in my bonnie Bell. 

The flowery spring leads sunny summer 

And.yellow autumn presses near, 
Then in his turn comes gloomy winter, 

Till smiling spring again appear. ■ 
Thus seasons dancing, life advancing, 

Old Time and nature their changes tell, 
But never ranging, still unchanging 

I adore my bonnie Bell. 



THE OALLANT WEAVER. 

WHERE Cart rins rowin to the sea, 
By mony a flow'r, and spreading tree 
There lives a lad, the lad forme, 
He is a gallant weaver. 

Oh I had wooers aught or nine, 

• They gied me rings and ribbons fine ; 
And I was fear'd my heart would tine, 
And I gied it to the weaver. 

My daddie sign'd my tocher-band 
To gie the lad that has the land ; 
But to my heart I'll add my hand. 
And gie it to the weaver. 

While birds rejoice in leafy bowers : 
While bees rejoice in opening flowers ; 
While corn grows green in simmer showers, 
I'li love my gallant weaver. 



LOUIS, WHAT RECK I BY THEE ? 

LOUIS, what reck I by thee, 

Or Geordie on his ocean ? 
Dyvor, beggar louns to me, 

I reign in Jeanie's bosom. 

Let me crown my love her law, 
And in her breast enthrone me : 

Kings and nations, swith awa ! 
Reif randies, I disown ye ! 



FOR THE SAKE OF SOMEBODY. 
MY heart is sair, T dare na tell, 
My heart is sair for somebody ; 



I could wake a winter night 

For the sake o' somebody. 

Oh-honl for somebody ! 

Oh-hey ! for somebody 1 

I could range the world around, 

For the sake o' somebody. 

Ye powers that smile on virtuous love, 

O, sweetly smile on somebody 
Frae ilka danger keep him free, 
And send me safe my somebody. 
Oh-hon ! for somebody I 
Oh-hey ! for somebody ! 
I wad do — what wad I not? 
For the sake o' somebody ! 



THE LOVELY LASS OF INVERNESS. 

THE lovely lass o' Inverness, 

Nae joy nor pleasure can she see ; 
For e'en and more she cries, alas ! 

And ay ihe saut tearblins her e'e : 
Drumossie moor, Drumossie day, 

A waefu' day it was to me ; 
For there I lost my father dear, 

My father dear, and brethren three. 

Their winding sheet the bluidy day, 

Their graves are growing green to see ", 
And by them lies the dearest lad 

That ever blest a woman's e'e! 
Now wae to thee, thou cruel lord, 

A bluidy man I trow thou be : 
For mony a heart thou hast made sair, 

That ne'er did wrong tothiue or thee. 



MOTHERS LAMENT FOR THE DEATH Or 
HER SON. 

TUNE—" Finlayston House." 

FATE gave the word, the arrow sped, 

And pierc'd my darling's heart : 
And with him all the joys are fled 

Life can to me impart. 
By cruel hands the sapling drops, 

In dusi dishonour'd laid : 
So fell the pride of all my hopes, 

My age's future shade. 

The mother-linnet in the brake 

Bewails her ravish'd young ; 
So I, for my lost darling's sake, 

Lament the live-day long. 
Death, oft I've fear'd thy fatal blow, 

Now fond I bare my breast, 
O, do thou kindly lay me low 

With him I love, at rest 



112 



BURNS' POEMS. 



O MAY, THY MORN. 

O MAY, thy morn wu ne'er sae sweet, 
As the mirk night o' December : 

For sparkling was the rosy wine, 
And private was the chamber : 

And dear was she I dare na name, 
But I will ay remember. 
And dear, Sfc. 

And here's to them that, like oursel, 

Can push about the jorum ; 
And here's to them that wishusweel, 

May a' that's guid watch o'er them : 
And here's to them, we dare na tell, 

The dearest o' the quorum. 
And here's to, Sfc. 



O, WAT YE WllA'S IN YON TOWN? 

O, WAT ye wha's in yon town, 

Ye see the e'enin sun upon ? 
The fairest dame 's in yon town, 

That e'enin sun is shining on. 

Now haply down yon gay green shaw, 
She wanders by yon spreading tree : 

How blest ye flow'rs that round her blaw. 
Ye catch the glances o' her e'e ! 

How blest ye birds that round her sing, 
And welcome in the blooming year ! 

And doubly welcome be the spring, 
The season to my Lucy dear. 

The sun blinks blithe on yon town, 
And on yon bonuie braes of Ayr ; 

But my delight in yon town, 
And dearest bliss, is Lucy fair 

Without my love, not a' the charms 
O' Paradise could yield me joy ; 

Eut gie me Lucy in my arms, 
And welcome Lapland's dreary sky. 

My cave wad be a lover's bower, 
Tho' raging winter rent the air ; 

And she a lovely little flower, 
That I wad tent and shelter there. 

O, sweet is she in yon town, 

Yon sinkin sun's gane down upon ! 

A fairer than's in yon town, 
His setting beam ne'er shone upon. 



A RED, RED ROSE. 

O, MY Iuve's like a red, red rose, 
That's newly sprung in June : 

O, my hive's like themelodie 
That's sweetly play'd in tune. 

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, 

So deep in luve am I : 
And I will luve thee still, my dear, 

Till a' the seas gang dry. 

Till a' the seis gangdry, my dear, 
And the rocks melt wi' the sun : 

I will luve thee still, my dear, 
While the sands o' life shall run. 

And fare thee weel, my only luve 1 
And fare thee weel a while ! 

And I will come again, my hive, 
Tho' it were ten thousand mile. 



A VISION. 

As I stood by yon roofless tower, 

Where the wa'-flower scents the dewy air. 
Where the howlet mourns in her ivy bower, 

And the midnight moon her care. 

The winds were laid, the air was still, 
The stars they shot alang the sky J 

The fox was howling on the hill, 
And the distant-echoing glens reply. 

The stream, adown its hazelly path, 
Was rushing by the ruin'd wa's, 

Hasting to join the sweeping Nith, 

Whase distant roaring swells and fa's. 

The cauldblue north was streaming forth 
Her lights, wi' hissing, eerie din ; 

Athort the lift they start and shift, 
Like fortune's favours, tint as win. 

By heedless chance I turn'd mine eyes, 
And by the moon-beam, shook, to see 

A stern and stalwart ghaist arise, 
Attir'd as minstrels wont to be. 

Had r a statue been o'slane, • 

Hisdarin look had daunted me : 

And on his bonnet grav'd was plain, 
The sacred posy — Libertie 1 



If angry fate is sworn my foe, 

And suffering I am doom'd to bear ; 

I careless quit aught else below, 
But spare me, spare me Lucy dear. 

For while life's dearest blood is warm, 
Ae thought frae her shall ne'er depart, 

And she— as fairest is her form ! 
She has the truest kuidest heart. 



And fiae his harp sic strains did flow, 
Might rous'd the slumbering dead t 

But oh, it was a tale of wo, 
As ever met a Briton's ear ! 

He sang wi' joy his former day, 
He weeping wail'd his latter times | 

But what he said it was nae play, 
I winna ventur't in my rhyme*. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



113 



COPY 
OF A POETICAL ADDRESS. 



TO MR. WILLIAM TYTLER, 

With the present of the Bard's Picture. 

REVERED defender of beauteous Stuart, 

Of Stuart, a name once respected, 
A name, which to love was the mark of a true heart, 

But now 'tis despised and neglected. 

Tho something like moisture cong!obe6 in my eye, 

Let no one misdeem me disloyal ; 
A poor friendless waud'rer may well claim a sigh, 

Still more, if that wand'rer were royal. 

My fathers that name have rever'd on a throne ; 

My fathers have fallen to right it : 
Those fathers would spurn their degenerated son, 

That name should he scollingly slight it. 

Still in prayers for K— G— I most heartily joiiv, 

The Q, — , and the rest of the gentry, 
Be they wise, be they foolish, is nothing of mine ; 

Their title's avow'd by my country. 

But why of this epocha make such a fuss, 



fc But loyalty truce : we're on dangerous ground, 
Who knows how the fashions may alter ? 
The doctrine, to-day, that is loyalty sound, 
To-morrow may bring us a halter. 

i send you a trifle, a head of a bard, 

A trifle scarce worthy your care ; 
But accept it, good Sir, as a mark of regard, 

Sincere as a saint's dying prayer. 

Now life's chilly evening dim shades on your eye, 
And ushers the long dreary night ; 

But you, like the star that athwart gilds the sky, 
your course to the latest is bright. 



CALEDONIA. 
TUNE—" Caledonian Hunt's Delight." 

THERE was once aday, but old Time then was young, 

That brave Caledonia, the chief of her line, 
From some of your northern deities sprung, 

(Who knows not that brave Caledonia's divine ?) 
From Tweed to the Orcades was her domain, 

To hunt, or to pasture, or do what she would : 
Her heavenly relations there fixed her reign, 

And pledg'd her their godheads to warrant it good, 

A lambkin in peace, but a lion in war, 
The pride of her kindred the heroine grew : 



Her grandsire, old Odin, triumphantly swore, 
" Whoe'er shall provoke thee, th' encounter shall 
rue!" 

With tillage or pasture at times she would sport, 
To feed her fair flocks by her green rustling corn t 

But chiefly the woods were her fav'rite resort, 
Her darling amusement, the hounds and the hora. 

Long quiet she reign'd ; till thitherward stears 

A flight of bold eagles from Adria's stand : 
Repeated, successive, for many long years, 

They darken'd the air, and they plunder'd the land t 
Their pounces were murder, and terror their cry, 

They'd conquer'd and ruin'd a world beside ; 
She took to her hills, and her arrows let fly, 

The daring invaders they fled or they died. 

The fell Harpy raven took wing from the north, 

The scourge of the seas, and the dread of the shore ; 
The wild Scandinavian boar issu'd forth 

To wanton in carnage and wallow in gore ; 
O'er countries and kingdoms the fury prevail'd. 

No arts could appease them, no arms could repel ; 
But brave Caledonia in vain they assail'd, 

As Largs well can witness, and Loncartie tell. 

The Chameleon-savage disturb'd her repose. 

With tumult, disquiet, rebellion and strife, 
Provok'd beyond bearing, at last she arose, 

And robb'd him at once of his hopes and his life : 
The Anglian lion, the terror of France, 

Oft prowling, ensanguin'd the Tweed's silver flood ; 
But, taught by the bright Caledonian lance, 

He learned to fear in his own native wood. 

Thus bold, independent, unconquer'd, and free, 

Her bright course of glory for ever shall run ; 
For brave Caledonia immortal must be ; 

I'll prove it from Euclid as clear as the sun ; 
Rectangle triangle, the figure we'll choose, 

The upright is Chance, and old Time is the base ; 
But brave Caledonia's the hypotenuse ; 

Then ergo, she'll match them, and match them al- 
ways. 



THE following Poem was written to a Gentleman, 
who had sent him a Newspaper, and offered to 
continue it free of Expense. 

KIND Sir, I've read your paper through, 

And faith, to me, 'twas really new ! 

How guessed ye, Sir, what maist I wanted 

This mony aday I've grain'd and gaunted, 

To ken what French mischief was brewin ; 

Or what the drumlie Dutch were doin ; 

That vile doup-skelper, Emperor Joseph, 

If Venus yet had got his nose off : 

Or how collieshangie works 

Atween the Russians and the Turks ; 

Or if the Swede, before he halt, 

Would play anither Charles the twalt : 

If Denmark, any body spake o't ; 

Or Poland, wha had now the tack o't : 

How cut-throat Prussian blads were hingin, 

How libbet Italy was singin > 



14 



BURNS' POEMS. 



If Spaniard, Portuguese, or Swiss, 

Were sayin or takui aught amiss : 

Or how our merry lads at hame, 

In Britain's court kept up the game : 

How Royal George, the Lord leuk o'er him ! 

Was managing St. Stepheu's quorum j 

If sleekit Chattam Will was livin, 

Or glaikit Charlie got his nievein; 

How daddie Burke the plea was cookin, 

If Warren Hastings' neck wasyeukin ; 

How cesses, stents and fees were rax'd, 

Or if bare a — s yet were tax'd, 

The news o' princes, dukes, and earls, 

Pimps, sharpers, bawds, and opera-girls ; 

If that difl buckie, Geordie W*** S, 

Was threshin still at hizzies' tails, 

Or if he was grown oughtlins douser 

And no a perfect kintra cooser, 

A' this and mair I never heard of; 

And but for you 1 might despaired of. 

So greatfu', back your news I send you, 

And pray, a' guid things may attend you. 

EUisland, Monday Morning, 1790. 



POEM ON PASTORAIi POETRY. 

HAIL, Poesie 1 thou Nymph reserv'd ! 
In chase o' thee, what crowds hae swerv'd 
Frae common sense, or sunk enerv'd 

'Mang heaps o' clavers ; 
And och I o'er aft thy joes hae slarv'd, 

Mid a' thy favours I 

Say, Lassie, why thy train amang, 
While loud the trump's heroic clang, 
And sock or buskin skelp alang 

To death or marriage ; 
Scarce ane has tried the shepherd sang 

But wi' miscarriage ? 

In Homer's craft Jock Milton thrives 
Eschylus' pen Will Shakspeare drives ; 
Wee Pope, thelcuurlin, till him rives 

Hortatian fame ; 
In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives 

Even Sappho's flame. 

But thee, Theocritus, wha matches ? 
They're no herd's ballats, Maro's catches : 
Squire Pope but busks his skinklin patches 

O' heathen tatters : 
I pass by hunders, nameless wretches, 

That ape their betters. 

In this braw age o' wit and lear 
Will nane the Shepherd's whistle mair 
Blaw sweetly, in its native air 

A rural grace • 
And wi' the far-fam'd Grecian, share 

A rival place ? 

Yes 1 there's ane — a Scottish callan ! 
There's ane ; come forrit, honest Allan I 
Thou needita jouk behint the hallan, 

A chiel sae clever ; 



The teeth o' Time may gnaw Tantallan, 

Bui 'uoii'sfor ever. 

Thou paints auld nature to the nines, 

In thy sweet Caledonian lines; 

Nae gowdoa stream thro' myrtles twine, 

Where 1 hilomel, 
While nightly breezes sweep the vines, 

Her griefs will tell t 

In gowany glens thy burnie strays, 
Where bonnie lasses bleach their -cla.es : 
Or trots by hazelly shaws and braes, 

Wi' hawthorns gray, 
Where blackbirds join the shepherd's lays 

At close o' day. 

Thy rural loves are nature's sel ; 
Nae bombast spates o' nonsense swell ; 
Nae snap conceits, but that sweet spelt 

O' witchinlove, 
That charm that can the strongest quell ; 

Thesterne3t move. 



BATTLE OF SHERit'F-MUlR, 
Between the Duke of Argyle and the Karl of >' 

" O CAM ye here the fight to shun. 

Or herd the sheep wi' me, man ? 
Or were ye at the sherra-muir, 

And did the battle sae, man ?" 
I saw the battle, sair and tough, 
And reekin red ran mony a sheugh, 
My heart, for fear, gat- sough sough for, 
To hear the thuds, and see the duds, 
O' clans frae woods, in tartan buds, 

Wha glaum 'd at kingdoms three, man. 

The red-coat lads wi' black cockades 

To meet them were na slaw, man ; 
They rush'd and push'd, and blude outgush'd , 

And mony a bouk did IV, man : 
The great Argyle led on his files, 
I wat they glanced twenty miles : 
They hack'd and hash'd, while broad pwordsclas 
And thro' they dash'd, and hew'd and smash'.!, 

Till fey men died awa, man. 

But had you seen the philibtgs, 

Andskyrin te.rtan trewes, man, 
When in the teeth they dar'd uiu vi digs, 

And covenant true blues, man ; 
In lines extended lung anil lara,e, 
When bayonets oppos'd the tan;e, 
And thousands hasten'd to the charge, 
Wi' Highland wrath, they frae the sheath 
Drew blades o' death, till, o, do' breath 

They fled like frighted dues, man. 

" O how deit Tarn, can that be true .' 
The chase gaed frae the north, man ; 



BURNS' POEMS. 



115 



I hi myielf, they did pursue 

The horsemen back to Forth, man : 
And at Dumblane, in my ain sight, 
They took the brig wi" a' their might, 
Andstraughtto Stirling wing'd their flight j 
But, cursed lot ! the gates were shut. 
And mony a huntit, poor red-coat, 
For fear araaist did swarf, man." 



My oister Kate cam up the gate 

Wi' crowdie unto me, man ; 
She swore she saw some rebels run 

Frae Perth unto Dundee, man : 
Their left-hand general had nae skill, 
The Angus lads had nae good will 
That day their neebors' blood to spill j 
For fear, by foes, that they should lose 
Their cogs o' brose ; all crying woes, 
And so it goes you see, man. 

They've lost some gallant gentlemen, 
Amang the Highland clans, man ; 
I fear my lord Panmure is slain, 

Or fallen in whiggish hands, man : 
Now wad ye sing this double fight, 
Some Icil for wrang, and some for right 
But mony bade the world guid-night ; 
Then ye may tell, how pell and mell, 
By red claymores, and muskets' knell, 
Wi' dying yell, the tories fell, 
And whigs to hell did flee, man. 



SKETCH.— NEW-YEAR'S DAY 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

THIS day Time winds th' exhausted chain, 
To run the twelvemonth's length again : 
I see the old, bald-pa ted fellow, 
With ardent eyes, complexion sallow, 
Adjust the unimpair'd machine, 
To wheel the equal, dull routine. 

The absent lover, minor heir, 

In vain assail him with their prayer, 

Deaf as my friend, he sees them press, 

Nor makes the hour one moment less. 

Will you (the Major's with the hounds 

The happy tenants share his rounds ; 

Coila's fair Rachel's care to-day, 

And blooming Keith's engaged with Gray ) 

From housewife cares a minute borrow — 

— That grandchild's cap will do to-morrow — 

And join with me a moralizing, 

This day'B propitious to be wise in. 

First, what did yesternight deliver ? 

" Another year is gone for ever." 

And what is thi3 day's strong suggestion ? 

" The passing moment's all we rest on!" 

Rest on — for what ? what do we here ? 

Or why regard the passing year ? 

Will Time, amus'd with proverb'd lore, 

Add to our dale one minute .more ? 



A few days may— a few years 

Repose us in the silent dust. 

Then is it wise to damp our bliss? 

Yes — all such reasonings are amiss ! 

The voice of nature loudly cries, 

And many a message from the skies, 

That something in us never dies ; 

That on this frail, uncertain state, 

Hang matters of eternal weight ; 

That future life in worlds unknown 

Must take its hue from this alone ; 

Whether as heavenly glory bright, 

Ordark as misery's woful night. — 

Since theu, my houour'd, first of friends, 

On this poor being all depends ; 

Let us th' important now employ, 

And live as those that never die. 

Tho' you, with day and honours crown'd, 

Witness that filial circle round, 

(A sight life's sorrow to repulse, 

A sight pale envy to convulse,) 

Others now claim your chief regard : 

Yourself, you wait your bright reward. 



EXTEMPORE, on the late Mr. William Smelie 
Author of the Philosophy of Natural History. 



Member of the Ajitiquarian and Royal societies of 

urgh. 



Edinbu 



To Crochallan came 
The old cock'd hat, the gray surtout, the same ; 
His bristling beard just rising in its might, 
'Twas four long nights and days to shaving-night, 
His uncombed grizzly locks wild staring thatch'd, 
A head for' thought profound and clear, unmatch'd, 
Yet tho' his caustic wit, was biting, rude, 
His heart was warm, benevolent, and good. 



POLIT/CAL INSCRIPTION for an Altar to It- 
dependence, at Kerroughty, the Seat of Mr. H«r- 
on ; written in summer, 1795. 

THOU ofanindependant mind, 
With soulresolv'd, with soul resign'd ; 
Prepar'd power's proudest frown to brave. 
Who wilt not be, nor have a slave ; 
Virtue alone who dost revere, 
Thy own reproach alone dost fear, 
Approach this shrine, and worship here. 



SONNET, 

ON THE 

DEATH OF ROBERT RIDDEL, ESQ. 

OF GLEN RIDDLE, APRIL, 1794. 

No more, ye warblers of the wood, no more, 
Nor pour your descant, grating on my soul ; 
Thou young-eyed Spring, gay in thy verdant stole, 

More welcome were to megrim Winter's wildest roar. 



JIG 



BURNS' POEMS. 



How can ye charm, ye flow'rs with all your dyes ? 

Ye blow upon the sod that wraps my friend ; 

How can I to the tuneful strain attend ? 
That strain flows round th' untimely tomb where 
Riddel lies. 

Yee, pour, ye warblera, pour the notes of wo, 
And sooth the Virtues weeping on this bier ; 
The Man of Worth, and has not left his peer, 

Is in his " narrow house" for ever darkly low. 

Thee, Spring, again with joy shall others greet ; 
Me, mem'ry of my loss will only meet. 



LADY FAMED FOR HER CAPRICE. 

How cold is that bosom which folly once fir'd, 
How pale is that cheek where the rouge lately glis- 
ten'd ! 

How silent that tongue which the echoes oft tir'd, 
How dull is that ear which to flattery so listen'd ! 

if sorrow and anguish their exit await, 
From friendship and dearest affection remov'd ; 

How doubly severer, Eliza, thy fate, 
Thou diedst unwept as thou livedst unlov'd. 

Loves, Graces, and Virtues, I call not on you ; 

So shy, grave, and distant, ye shed not a tear : 
But come, all ye offspring of folly so true, 

And flowers let us cull for Eliza's cold bier. 

We'll search thro' the garden for each silly flower, 
"We'll roam thro' the forest for each idle weed ; 

But chiefly the nettle, so typical, shower, 
For none e'er approach'd her but ru'd the rash deed 

We'll sculpture the marble, we'll measure the lay ; 

Here Vanity strums on her idiot lyre ; 
There keen indignation shall dart on her prey, 

Which spurning Contempt shall redeem from his ire 



THE EPITAPH. 

HERE lies, now a prey to insulting neglect 
What once was a butterfly gay in life's beam, 

Want only of wisdom denied her respect, 
Want only of goodness denied her esteem. 



ANSWER to a Mandate sent by the Surveyor of the 
Windows, Carriages &c. to each Farmer, order- 
ing him to send a signed List of his Horses, Ser- 
vants, Wheel-Carriages, &c, and whether he was 
a married Man or a Bachelor, and what children 
they had. 



SIR, as your mandate did request, 
I send you here a faithfu' list, 



My horses, servants, carts, andgraith, 
To which I'm free to tak my aith. 

Imprimis, then, for carriage cattle, 
I hae four brutes o' gallant mettle, 
As ever drew before a pettle, 
My hand afore, a guild auld has-been, 
And wight and wilfu' a' his days seen ; 
My hand a hin, a guid brown filly, 
Wha aft hae born me safe frae Killie, 
And your old borough mony a time, 
In days when riding was nae crime : 
My far a hin, a guid gray beast, 
As e'er in tug or tow wastrac'd ; 
The fourth, a Highland Donald hasty, 
A d-mn'd red wud, Kilburnie blastie. 
For-by a cowt, of cowts the wale, 
As ever ran before a tail ; 
An' he be spar'd to be a beast, 
He'll draw me fifteen pund at least. 

Wheel carriages I hae but few, 
Three carts, and twa are feckly new : 
An auld wheel-barrow, mair for token, 
Ae leg and baith the trams are broken ; 
I made a poker o' the spindle, 
And my auld mither brunt the trundle. 
For men, I've three mischievous boys, 
Run deils for rantin and for noise ; 
A gadsmanane,a thrasher t'other, 
Wee Davoc hauds the nowte in fothel 
I rule them, as I ought, discreetly, 
And often labour them completely, 
And ay on Sundays duly nightly, 
I on the questions tairge them tightly. 
Till faith wee Davoc's grown sae gleg 
(Tho' scarcely langer than my leg,) 
He'll screed you off" effectual calling, 
As fast as ony in the dwalling. 

I'venanein female servant station, 
Lordkeepme ay frae a' temptation; 
I hae nae wife and that my bliss is, 
Ami ye hae laid nae tax on misses ; 
For weans I'm mair than well contented, 
Heaven sent me ane mair than I wanted j 
My sousie, smirking, dear-bought Bess, 
She stares the dacidie in her face, 
Enough of ought ye like but grace. 
But her, my bonnie, sweet, wee lady 
I've said enough for her already, 
And it ye tax her or her mither, 
By theL— Dye'seget them a' thegither ! 

And now, remember, Mr. Aiken, 
Nae kind of license out I'm taking. 
Thro' dirt and dub for life I'll paidle, 
Ere 1 sae dear pay for a saddle ; 
I've sturdy stumps, the Lord be thanked I 
And a' my gates on foot I'll shank it. 
This list wi' ray ain hand I've wrote it, 
The day and date is under noted ; 
Then know all ye whom it concerns, 
Subscripsi huic 

ROBERT BURNS. 
Mossgiel, 22d, Feb. 1786. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



117 



SONG. 

NAB gentle dames, tho' e'er sae fair, 
Shall ever be my muses's care ; 
Their titles a' are empty show ; 
Gie me my highland lassie, O. 

Within the glen sae bush/, O. 
Aboon the plain sae rushy, O, 
I set me down wV right good will; 
To sing my highland lassie, O. 

Oh, were yon hills and valleys mine, 
Yon palace and yon gardens tine ! 
The world then the love should know 
I bear my highland lassie, O, 
Within the glen, &c. 

But fickle fortune frowns on me, 
And I maun cross the raging sea ; 
But while my crimson currents flow 
I love my highland lassie, O. 
Within the glen, Sfc. 

Altho' thro' foreign climes I range. 
I know her heart will never change, 
For her bosom burns with honour's glow 
My faithful highland lassie, O. 
Within the glen, Sfc. 

For her I'll dare the billow's roar, 
For her I'll trace a distant shore, 
That Indian wealth may lustre throw 
Around my highland lassie, O. 
Within the glen, fyc. 

She has my heart, she has my hand, 
By sacred truth and honour's band ! 
Till the mortal stroke shall lay me low, 
I'm thine, my highland lassie, O. 

Farewell the glen sae bushy, O ! 

Farewell the plain sae rushy, O! 
To other lands I nolo must go, 
To sing my highland lassie, 01 



IMPROMPTU, 



-'S BIRTH-DAY, 



ON MRS. 

NOVEMBER 4, 1793. 

OLD Winter with his frosty beard, 
Thus once to Jove his prayer preferrd ; 
What have I done of all the year, 
To bear tliis hated docm severe ? 
My cheerless suns no pleasure know ; 
Night's horrid car drags, dreary, slow ; 
My dismal months no joys are crowning, 
But spleeny English, hanging, drowning. 

Now, Jove, for once be mighty civil, 
To counterbalance all this evil ; 



C.i-.-p ma. and I've no more to say, 

fine me Maria's natal day ! 

Thnt brilliant gift will so enrich me, 

Spring, summer, autumn, cannot match roe, 

'Tin done ! says Jove ; so ends my story, 

And Winter once rejoic'd in glory. 



ADDRESS T(JA LADY 

OH, wert thou in the cauld blast, 

On yonder lea, on yonder lea j 
My plaidie to the angry airt, 

I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee : 
Or did misfortune's bitter storms 

Around thee blaw, around thee blaw, 
Thy bield should be my bosom, 

To share it a' to share^t a'. 

Or were I in the wildest waste, 

Sae black and bare, sae black and ban 
The desart were a paradise, 

If thou wert there, if thou wert there. 
Or were I monarch o' the globe, 

Wi' thee to reign, wi' thee to reign ; 
The brightest jewel in my crown, 

Wad be my queen, wad be my queen. 



TO A YOUNG LADY, 

MISS JESSY , DUMFRIES ; 

With Books which the Bard presented 

THINE be the volumes, Jessy fair, 
And with them take the poet's prayer ; 
That fate may in her fairest page, 
With every kindliest, best presage 
Of future bliss, enrol thy name : 
With native worth and spotless fame, 
And wakeful caution still aware 
Of ill — but chief, man's felon snare ; 
All blameless joys on earth we find, 
And all the treasures of the mind — 
These be thy guardian and reward ; 
So prays thy faithful friend, the Bard. 



SONNET, written on the 25th of January 1793, tl't 
Birth-day of the Author, on hearing a Thrush sing 
in a morning Walk. 

SING on, sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough : 
Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to thy strain ; 
See aged Winter, 'mid his surly reign, 

At thy blythe carol clears his furrow 'd brow. 



So in lone Poverty's dominion drear, 
Sits meek Content with light unanxious heart, 
Welcomes the rapid moments, bids them part, 

Nor asks if they bring aught to hope or fear. 



18 



BURNS' POEMS. 



I thank thee, Author of this opening day : 
Thou whose bright sun now gikls yon orient skies 1 
Riches denied, thy boon was purer joys, 

What Wealth could never give nor take away ! 

Yet come, thou ohild of poverty and care ; 
The mite high Heaven bestowed, that mite with thee 
I'll share. 



EXTEMPORE, toMr. S**E, onref using to dine 
toithhim, after having been promised the first of 
Company, and the first of Cookery ; Xllh December, 
17S5. 

No more of your guests, be they titled or not, 

And cook'ry the first in the nation ; 
Who is proof to thy personal converse and wit, 

Is proof to all other temptation. 



To Mr. S**E, with a Present of a Dozen of Porter. 



O, Had the malt thy strength of mind, 
Or hops the flavour of thy wit, • 

•Twere drink for first of human kind, 
A gift that e'en for S**ewere fit. 

Jerusalem Tavern, Dumfries. 



THE DUMFRIES VOLUNTEERS. 
TUNE—" Push about the Jorum."— April, 1795. 

DOES haughty Gaul invasion threat? 

Then let the loons beware, Sir, 
There's wooden walls upon our seas, 

And volunteers on shore, Sir. 
The Nith shall run to Corsincon, 

And Criffel sink in Solway, 
Ere we permit a foreign foe 

On British ground to rally ! 

Fall de rail, 8{c. 

O let us not like snarling tykes 

In wrangling be divided ; 
Till slap come in an unco loon 

And wi' a rung decide it. 
Be Britain Ptiil to Britain true, 

Amang oursels united ; 
For never but by British hands 

Maun British wrangs be righted, 
Fall de rail, §-c 

The kettle o' the kirk and stnte, 

Perhaps a claut may fail in't j 
But deil a foreign tinkler loun 

Shall ever ca' a nail in't. 
Our fathers' bluidthe kettle bought, 

And wha wad dare to spoil it ; 



By heaven the sacrilegious dog 
Shall fuel be to boil it. 

Fall derail, Ife. 

The wretch that wad a tyrant own, 

And the wretch his true-born brother, 
Who would set the mob aboon the throne, 

May they be damn'd together ! 
Who will not sing, " God save the King," 

Shall hang as high's the steeple ; 
But while we sing, " God save the King," 

We'll ne'er forget the People. 



POEM, 

ADDRESSED TO MR. MITCHELL, COLLECT 
OR OF EXCISE, DUMFRIES, 1796. 

FRIEND of the Poet, tried and leal, 
Wha wanting thee, might beg or steal ; 
Alake, alake, the meikledeil 

Wi' a' his witches 
Aie at it, skelpin, jig and reel, 

In my poor pouches. 

I modestly fu' fain wad hint it, 

That one pound one, I sairly want it : 

If wi' the hizzie down ye sent it, 

It would be kind ; 
And while my heart wi' life-blojd dunted, 

I'dbear'tinmind. 

So may the auld year gang out moaning 
To see the new come laden, groaning, 
Wi' double plenty o'er the loanin 

To thee and thine ; 
Domestic peace and comforts crowning 

The hale design. 

POSTCRIPT. 

Ye've heard this while how I've been ticket, 
And by fell death was nearly nickel : 
Grim loun 1 he gat me by the fecket, 

And sair me sheuk ; 
But by guid luck I lap a wicket, 

And turn'd aneuk. 

But by that health I've got a .share o't., 
And by that life, I'm promis'd mair o't, 
My hale and weel I'll take a care o't 

A tentier way ; 
Then farewell folly, hide and hair o't, 

For ance and aye. 



Sent to a Gentleman whom he had offended 

THE friend whom wild from wisdom's way 
The fumes if wine infuriate send ; 

(Not moony madness more astray) 
Who but deplores that hapless friend? 



BURNS' POEMS. 



119 



Mine was th' Insensate frtnzied part, 
Ah why should I such scenes outlive I 

Scenes so abhorrent to my heart 1 
•Til thine to pity and forgive. 



POEM ON LIFE. 

ADDRESSED TO COLONEL DE PEYSTER, 
DUMFRIES, 1796. 

MY honour'd colonel, deep I feel 
Your interest in the Poet's weal ; 
Ah ! now sma' bsart hae I to speel 

The steep Parnassus, 
Surrounded thus by bolus pill, 

And potion glasses. 

what a canty warld were it, 

Would pain and care, and sickness spare it ; 

And fortune favour worth and merit, 

As they deserve : 
(And aye a rowth, roast beef and claret ; 

Syne wha wad starve ?) 

Dame Life, tho' fiction out may trick her, 
And in paste gems and frippery deck her ; 
Oh I flickering, feeble, and unsicker 

I've found her still, 
Ay wavering like the willow wicker, 

'Tween good and ill. 

Then that curst carmagnole, auld Satan, 
Watches, like baudrans by a rattan, 
Our sinfu' saul to get a claut on 

Wi' felon ire ; 
Syne, whip ! his tail ye'li ne'er castsauton, 

He's offlike fire 

Ah Nick ! ah Nick ! it is na fair, 
First showing us the tempting ware, 
Bright wines and bonnie lasses rare, 

To put us daft ; 
Syne weave, unseen, thy spider snare 

O' hell's damn'd waft. 

Poor man, the flie, aft bizzes by, 
And aft as chance he comes thee nigh, 
Thy auld damn'd elbow yeuks wi' joy, 

And hellish pleasure ; 
' Already in thy fancy's eye, 

Thy sicker treasure. 

Soon, heels o'ergowdie ! in he gangs, 
And like a sheep-head on a tangs, 
They girning laugh enjoys his pangs 

And murdering wrestle, 
As dangling in the wind, he hangs 

A gibbet's tassel. 

But lest you think I am uncivil, 

To plague you with this draunting drivel, 

Abjuring a' intentions evil, 

1 quat my pen : 



The Lord preserve us fra the devil I 

Amen ! amen ! 



ADDRESS TO THE TOOTH-ACH. 

MY curse upon thy venom'd stang, 
That shoots my tortur'd gums alang ; 
And thro' my lugs gies mony a twang, 

Wi' gnawing vengeance ; 
Tearing my nerves wi' bitter pang, 

Like racking engines 1 

When fevers burn, or ague freezes, 
Rheumatics gnaw, or cliolic squeezes ; 
Our neighbour's sympathy may ease us, 

Wi' pitying moan ; 
But thee — thou hell o' a' diseases, 

Ay mocks our groan 

Adown my beard the slavers trickle 1 
I throw the wee stools o'er the mickle, 
As round the fire the giglets keckle, 

To see me loup ; 
While raving mad, I wish a heckle 

Were in their doup. 

O' a' the num'rous human dools, 

111 har'sts, daft bargains, cutty-stools, 

Or worthy friends rak'd i' the moola, 

Sad sight to see I 
The tricks o' knaves, or fash o 1 fools, 

Thou bear'st the gree. 

Where'er that place be priests ca' hell, 
Whence a' the tones o' mis'ry yell, 
And ranked plagues their numbers tell, 

In dreadfu' raw, 
Thou, Tooth-ach, surely bear'st the bell 

Amang them a' I 

O thou grim, mischief-making chiel, 
That gars the notes of discord squeel, 
Till daft mankind aft dance a reel 

In gore a shoe- thick ;— 
Gie a' the faes o' Scotland's weal 

A towmond's Tc-oth-ach 



TUNE— "Morag. ' 

WHA is she that lo'es me, 
And has my heart a-keeping ? 

O sweet is she that lo'es me, 
As dews o' simmer weeping, 
In tears the rose-buds steeping. 

CHORUS. 

O that's the lassie o' my heart, 
My lassie ever dearer ; 

O that's the queen o' womankind, 
And ne'er a ane to peer her. 



BURNS' FOEMS. 



If thou shaltmceta lassie, 

In grace and beauty charming, 

That e'en thy chosen lassie, 
Ere while thy breast sae warming, 
Had ne'er sic powers alarming. 
O that's, $rc 

If thou hadst heard her talking, 
And thy attentions plighted 

That ilka body talking, 
But her by thee is slighted 
And thou art all delighted. 
O that's, Sfc. 

If thou hast met this fair one ; 
When frae her thou hast parted, 

If every other fair one, 

But her thou hast deserted, 
And thou art broken-hearted.— 
O that's, fr c. 



SONG. 

JOCKEY'S ta'en the parting kiss, 
O'er the mountains he isgane ; 
And with him i3 a' my bliss, 
Nought but griefs with me remain. 

Sparc my luve, ye winds that blaw, 
Plashy sleets and beating rain 1 

Spare my luve, thou feathery snaw, 
Drifting o'er the frozen plain. 

When the shades of evening creep 
O'er the day's fair, gladsome e'e, 

Sound and safely may he sleep, 
Sweetly blithe his waukeningbe ! 

He will think on her he loves, 
Fondly he',11 repeat her name ; 

For where'er hedistant roves, 
Jockey's heart is still at hame. 



SONG. 

MY Peggy's face, my Peggy's form, 
The frost of hermit age might warm ; 
My Peggy's worth, my Peggy's mind, 
Might charm the first of human kind. 
I love my Peggy's angel air, 
Her face so truly, heavenly fair, 
Her native grace so void of art, 
But I adore my Peggy's heart. 

The lily's hue, the rose's dye, 
The kindling lustre of an eye ; 
Who but owns their magic sway, 
Who but knows they all decay ! 
The tender thrill, the pitying tear, 
The generous purpose, nobly dear, 
The gentle look, that rage disarms, 
These are all immortal charms. 



WRITTEN in a Wrapper enclosing a Letttr to Capt, 
Grose, to be left with Mr. Cardonnel, Antiquarian, 

TUNE—" Sir John Malcolm. 

KEN ye ought o' Captain Grose? 

Jgo, §• ago, 
If he's amang his friends or foes ? 
Iram, coram, dago. 

Is he South or is he North ? 

Igo, tif ago, 
Or drowned in the river Forth ? 
Iram, coram, dago. 

Is he slain Ly Highland bodies ? 

Igo, & ago, 
And eaten like a weather-haggis 
Iram, coram, dago. 

Is he to Abram's bosom gane ? 

Igo, 8f ago, 
Orhaudin Sarah by the warae ? 
Iram, coram, dago. 

Where'er he be, the Lord be near him I 

Igo, Seago, 
As for the deil, he daur na steer him. 
Iram, coram, dago. 

But please transmit th' enclosed letter 

Igo, & ago, 
Which will oblige your humble debtor. 
Iram, coram, dago. 

So may ye hae auld stanes in store, 

Igo, Sf ago, 
The very stanes that Adam bore. 
Iram, coram, dago. 

So may ye get in glad possession, 

Igo, if ago. 
The coins o' Satan's coronation ! 
Iram, coram, dago. 



TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ, 
OF FINTRY, 

ON RECEIVING A FAVOUR 

1 CALL nogoddess to inspire my strains, 
A fabled Muse may suit a bard tha t feigns ; 
Friend of my life! my ardent spirit burns, 
And all the tribute of my heart returns, 
For boons accorded, goodness ever new, 
The gift still dearer, as the giver you. 

Thou orb of day ! thou other paler light ! 
And all ye many sparkling stars of night ; 
If aught that giver from my mind efface ; 
If I that giver's bounty e'er disgrace ; 
Then roll to me along your wandering spheres, 
Only to number out a villain's years ! 



BURNS' POEMS. 



121 



EPITAPH ON A FRIEND. 
An honest man here lies at rest, 
As e'er God with his image blest ; 
The friend of man, the friend of truth : 
The friend of age, and guide of youth : 
Few hearts like his, with virtue warm'd, 
Few heads with knowledge so inform'd ; 
If there's another world, he lives in bliss : 
if there is none, he made the best of this. 



A GRACE BEFORE DINNER. 

O THOU, who kindly dost provide 

For every creature's want ! 
We bless thee, God of Nature wide, 

For all thy goodness lent : 
And, if it please thee, Heavenly Guide, 

May never worse be sent ; 
But whether granted, or denied, 

Lord bless us with content ! 
Amen ! 



To my dear an^ much honoured Friend, 
Mrs. Dunlop, of Dunlop. 

ON SENSIBILITY. 

SENSIBILITY, how charming, 
Thou, my friend, canst truly tell ; 
at distress with horrors arming, 
Thou hast also known too well ! 

Fairest flower, behold the lily, 
Blooming in the sunny ray : » 

Let the blast sweep o'er the valley 
See it prostrate on the clay. 

Hear the wood-lark charm the forest, 

Telling o'er his little joys ; 
Hapless bird ! a prey the surest, 

To each pirate of the skies. 

Dearly bought the hidden treasure, 
Finer feelings can bestow j 



Chords (hat vibrate sweetest pleasure 
Thrill the deepest noUsof wo. 



A VERSE composed and repeated by Burnt to tht 
Master of the House, on taking leave at a Place in 
the Highlands, where he had been hospitably enter- 
tained. 

WHEN death's dark stream I ferry o'er, 

A lime that surely shall come ; 
In Heaven itself, I'll ask no more, 

Than just a Highland welcome. 



FAREWELL TO AYRSHIRE. 

SCENES of wo and scenes of pleasure, 
Scenes that former thoughts renew, 

Scenes of wo and scenes of pleasure, 
Now a sad and last adieu ! 

Bonny Doon, sae sweet at gloamin, 

Fare thee weel before I gang ! 
Bonny Doon, whare early roaming, 

First I weav'd the rustic sang ! 

Bowers, adieu, whare Love, decoying, 
First enthrall'd this heart o' mine, 

There the safest sweets enjoying,— 
Sweets that Mem'ry ne'er shall tyne I 

Friends, so near my bosom ever, 
Ye hae render'd moments dear : 

But alas ! when forc'd to severe, 
Then the stroke, O, how severe 1 

Friends 1 that parting tear reserve it 

Tho' 'tis doubly dear to met 
Could I think I did deserve it, 

How much happier would I oe 1 

Scenes of wo and scenes of pSeasore, 
Scenes that former thoughts renew 

Scenes of wo and scenes of pleasure 
Now a sad and last adieu 1 



F 



MISCELLANEOUS POET(tY, 

SELECTED FROM 
OP 

ROBERT BURNS, 

FIRST PUBLISHED BY R. H. CROMEK. 



WRITTEN AT SELKIRK. 



AULDehuckie Reekie's" sair distrest, 
Down drocps her ance weel burnisht crest, 
Nae joy her bonnie busket nest 

Can yield ava, 
Her darling bird that she lo'es best, 

Willie's awa I 

II. 

O Willie was a witty wight, 
And had o' things an unco slight ; 
AiMd Reekie ay he keepit tight, 

And trig an* braw 
But now they'll busk her like a fright, 

Willie's awa I 

III 

The etiffert o' them a' he bow'd, 
The bauldest o' them a' he cow 'd ; 
They durst nae mair than he allow'd, 

•rtiatwas n lawt 
We're lost abirkie weel worth gowd, 

Willie's awa 1 



Now gawkies, tawpies, gowks and fools, 
Pra colleges and boarding schools, 
May sprout like simmer puddock-stools, 

In glen or shaw : 
He wha could brush them down to mools, 

Wi".ie's awa. 



V. 

The brethren o' the Commerce-Chaumert 
May mourn their loss wi' doolfu' clamour j 
He was a dictionar and grammar 

Amang them a' I 
I fear they'll now mak mony a stammer, 

Willie'sawat 

VI. 

Nae mair we see hia le»ee door 
Philosophers and Poets pour, * 
And toothy critics by the score, 

In bloody raw I 
The adjutant o' a' the core, 

Willie's awa I 

VII. 



Edinburgh. 



♦ Tn« Chamber of Commerce of Edinburgh, of 
Viich Mr. C. was Secretary. 



Now worthy G*****y's latin face, 
T****r'sand G'********'s modest grac« 5 
Mr' K****e, S****t, such a brace 

As Rome ne'er taw t 
They a' maun meet some ither place, 

Willie's awa! 

VIII 

Poor Burns— e en Scotch drink canna quickoo, 
He cheeps like some bewiider'd chicken, 
Scar'd frae its miiuiie and the cleckin 

By hoody-craw ; 
Griefs gien his heart an unco kickin, 

Willie's aw. I 

IX. 

Nower'ry sour-mou'd grinnin' blellum, 
And Calvin's fock are fit to fell him ; 

* Many literary gentleman were accustom*! w 
meet at Mr C — 's house at breakfast. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



123 



And self-conceited critic skellum 

His quill may draw ; 
He wha could brawlie ward their bellum, 

Willie's awa I 



Up wimpling stately Tweed I've sped, 
And Eden scenes on crystal Jed, 
And Ettrick banks now roaring red, 

While tempests blaw ; 
Hut every joy and pleasure's fled, 

Willie's awa 1 

XI. 

May I be slander's common speech : 
A text for infamy to preach ; 
And lastly, streekit out to bleach 

In winter snaw ; 
When I forget thee ! Willie Creech, 

Tho' far awa 1 

XII. 

May never wicked fortune touzle him ! 
May never wicked men bamboozle him I 
Until a pow as auld's Mathusalem I 

He c;.nty claw ! 
Then to the blessed, New Jerusalem, 

Fleet wing awa I 



A FRAGMENT. 

THEE, Caledonia, thy wild heaths among, 
Thee, famed for martial deed and sacred song, 

To thee 1 turn with swimming eyes J 
Where is that soul of freedom fled ? 
Immingled with the mighty dead 1 

Beneath that hallowed turf where Wallace lies 1 
Hear it not, Wallace, in thy bed of death I 

Ye babbling winds in silence sweep ; 

Disturb not ye the hero's sleep, 
Nor give the coward secret breath — 

Is this the power in freedom's war 

That wont to bid the battle rage ? 
Behold that eye which shot immortal hate, 

Crushing the despot's proudest bearing, 
That arm which, nerved with thundering fate, 

Braved usurpation's boldest daring ! 
One queuch'd in darkness like the sinking star, 
And one the palsied arm of tottering, powerless age. 



ELEGY 

ON THE DEATH OF ROBERT RUISSEAUX.' 



Now Robin lies in his last lair, 

Sft'll gabble rhyme, nor sing nae mair, 



play on hii own name. 



Cauld poverty, wi' hungry stare, 

Nae mair shall fear him ; 
Nor anxious fear, nor cankert care 

E'er mair come near him. 

To tell the truth, they seldom fasht him ; 
Except the moment that they crusht him ; 
For suneas chance or fate had husht 'em 

Tho' e'er sae short, 
Then wi' a rhyme or sang he lasht *em, 

And thought it sport.— 

Tho' he was bred to Kintra wark, 

And counted was baith wight and stark, 

Yet that was never Robin's mark 

To mak a man ; 
But tell him, be was learn 'd and dark, 

Yeroos'dhimthenl 



COM1N THRO' THE RYE. 

Comin thro' the rye, poor body, 

Comin thro' the rye, 
She draigl't a' her petticoatie 
Comin thro* the rye. 

Oh Jenny's a' weet, poor body, 

Jenny's seldom dry : 
She draigl't a' her petticoatie 
Comin thro' the rye. 

Gin a body meet a body 

Comin thro' the rye, 
Gin a body kiss a body, 

Need a body cry. 

Oh Jenny's a' weet, fte. 

Gin a body meet a body 

Comin thro' the glen ; 
Gin a body kiss a body, 

Need the warld ken, 

Oh Jenny's a' weet, &c. 



THE LOYAL NATIVES' VERSES.* 

YE song of sedition, give ear to my song, 
Let Syme, Burns, and Maxwell , pervade every throngs 
With Craken, the attorney, and Mundell the quack, 
Send Willie the monger to hell with a smack. 



BURNS— Extempore. 

YE true " Loyal Natives," attend to my song, 
In uproar and riot rejoice the night long ; 

* At this period of our Poet's life when political an- 
imosity was made the ground of private auarrel, the 
above foolish verses were sent as an attack on Burnt 
and his friends for their political opinions. They were 
written by some member of a club styling themselves 
the Loyal Natives of Dumfries, or rather by the united 
genius of that club, which was more distinguished for 
drunken loyalty, than either for respectability or poet- 
ical talent. The verses were handed over the table to 
Burns at a convivial meeting, and he instantly endan 
ed the subjoined reply. Religues, J>. 168. 



124 



BURNS' POEMS. 



From ewyand hatred your corps is exempt ; 

Bat where is your shield from the dart of contempt .' 



TO J. LAIPRAIK. 

Sept. nth. 1785. 
GUID speed an' furder to you Johnie, 
Guid health, hale han's, and weather bonnie ; 
Now when ye're nickan down fu' cannie 

The staff o' bread, 
May ye ne'er want a sloup o' brandy 

To clear your head 

May Boreas never thresh your rigs, 
Nor kick your rickles aff their legs, 
Sendin the stuff o'er muirs an' haggs 

Like drivin wrack ; 
But may the tapmast grain that wags 

Come to the sack. 

I'mbizzie too, an' skelpin at it, 

But bitter, daudin showers hae wat it, 

Sae my old stumpie pen I gat it 

Wi' mucklewark, 
An' took my Jocteleg an whatt it, 

Like ony elerk. 

It's now twa month that I'm your debtor, 
For your braw, nameless, dateless letter, 
Abusin me for harsh ill nature 

On holy men, 
While deil a hair yoursel ye're better, 

But mair profane. 

But let the kirk-folk ring their bells, 
Let's sing about our noble sels ; 
We'll cry nae jads frae heathen hills 

To help orroose us, 
But browster wives and whiskie stills, 



They are the muses. 



Your friendship, Sir, I winna quat it, 

An' if ye mak objections at it, 

Then ban' in nieve some day we'll knot it, 

An' witness take 
An' when wi' usquebae we've wat it 

It winna break. 

But if the beast and branks be spar'd 
Till kye be gaun without the herd, 
An' a' the vittel in the yard, 

An' theckit right, 
I mean your ingle-side to guard 

Ae winter night. 

Then muse-inspiring aqua-vitae 

Shall make us baith sae blithe an' witty, 

Till ye forget ye're auld au' gatty, 

An' be as canty 
As ye were nine years less than thretty, 

Sweet ane an' twenty I 

But stooksare cowpetwi' the blast, 
An' now the sun keeks in the west, 



Then I maun rin amang the rest 

An' quat my chanter, 
Sae I subscribe mysel in haste, 

Yours, Rab the Ranter. 



TO THE REV. JOHN M'MATH. 

ENCLOSING A COPY OF HOLY WILLIE'S 
PRAYER, WHICH HE HAD REQUESTED. 

Sept. 17th, 1785. 

WHILE at the stock the shearers cow'r 
To shun the bitter blaudin show'r, 
Or in gulravage rinnin scow'r 

To pass the time, 
To you I dedicate the hour 

In idle rhyme. 

My musie, tir'd wi' mony a sonnet 

On gown, an' ban', an' douse black bonnet, 

Is grown right eerie now she's done it, 

Lest they should blame her 
An' rouse their holy thunder on it 

And anathem her. 

I own 'twas rash an' rather hardy, 
That I, a simple, kiutra bardie, 
Should meddle wi' a pack sae sturdy, 

Wha, iftheykenme, 
Can easy, wi' a single wordie, 

Lowse h-U upon me. 

But I gae mad at their grimaces, 

Their sighan, cantan grace-prood faces, 

Their three mile prayers, an' hauf-mile graceB, 

Their raxan conscience, 
Whase greed, revenge, an' pride disgraces, 



Waur nor iheir 

There's Gaun, ' miska't waur than a beast, 
Wha has mair honour in his breast, 
Than mony scores as guid's the priest 

Wha sae abus't him ; 
An' may a bard no crack his jest [him. 

What way they've use't 

See him | the poor man's friend in need, 
The gentleman in word an' deed, 
An' shall his fame an' honour bleed 

By worthless skelluros. 
An' not a muse erect her head 

To cowe the blellums ? 

O Pope, had I thy satire's darts 
To gie the rascals their deserts, 
I'd rip their rotten, hoilow hearts, 

An' tell aloud 

* Gavin Hamilton, Esq. 

t The poet has introduced the two first lines of the 
stanza into the dedication of his works to Mr Hamil- 
ton. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



125 



Their Jugglin hocus-pocus arts 

To cheat the crowd. 

God knows, I'm no the thing I should be, 
Nor am I even the thing I could be, 
But twenty times, I rather would be, 

An' atheist clean, 
Than under gospel colours hid be, 

Just for a screen. 

An honest man may like a glass, 
An honest man may like a lass, 
But mean revenge, an' malice fause, 

He'll still disdain, 
An' then cry zeal for gospel laws, 

Like some we ken ; 

They take religion in their mouth ; 
They talk o' mercy, grace an' truth, 
For what ? to gie their malice skouth 

On some puir wight, 
An' hunt him down, o'er right an ruth, 

To ruin streight. 

All hail, Religion ! maid divine ! 
Pardon a muse sae mean as mine, 
Who in her rough imperfect line 

Thus daurs to name thee ; 
To stigmatize false friends of thine 

Can ne'er defame thee. 

Tho' blotcht an' foul wi' mony a stain, 

An' far unworthy of thy train, 

With trembling voice I tune my strain 

To join with those, 
Who boldly dare thy cause maintain 

In spite of foes : 

In spite o' crowds, in spite o' mobs, 
In spite of undermining jobs, 
In spite o' dark banditti stabs 

At worth an' merit 
By scoundrels, even wi' holy robes, 

But hellish spirit. 

O Ayr, my dear, my native ground, 
Within thy presbytereal bound 
A candid lib'ral band is found 

Of public teachers, 
As men, as christians too renow'd. 

An' manly preachers. 

Sir, in that circle you arenam'd ; 
Sir, in that circle you are fam'd ; 
An' some, by whom your doctrine's blam'd 

(Which gies you honour) 
Even, Sir, by them your heart's esteem'd, 

An' winning manner. 

Pardon this freedom I have ta'en, 

An' if impertinent I've been, 

Impute it not, good Sir, in ane [ye> 

Whase heart ne'er wrang'd 
But to his utmost would befriend 

Ought that belang'd ye. 



TO GAVIN HAMILTON, Esq. 



MAUCHLINE. 

(RECOMMENDING A BOY.) 

Mosgaville, May, 3 3 

I HOLD hSir, my boundenduty 
To warn you how that Master Tootie, 

A>»as, Laird M'Gaun,* 
Was here to hire yon lad away 
Bout whom ye spake the lither day, 

An' wad hae don't aff han' : 
But lest he learn the callan tricks, 

As faith I muckle doubt him, 
Like scrapin out auld crummie's nicies, 

An' tellin lies about them j 

Aslieve then I'd have then, 
Your clerkship he should sair, 

If sae be, ye maybe 
Not fitted otherwhere. 

Altho' I say't, he's gieg enough, 
An' bout a house that's rude au' rough, 
The boy might learn to swear I 
But then wi' you, he'll be sae taught, 
An' get sic fair example straught, 

I hae na ony fear. 
Ye'll catechize him every quirk, 

An' shore him well wi' hell ; 

An' gare him follow to the kirk 

—Ay when ye gang yoursel. 
If ye then, maun be then 

Frae hame this comin Friday, 
Then please, Sir, to lea'e, Sir, 
The Orders wi' your ady. 

My word of honour I hae gien, 
In Paisley John's that night at e 'en, 

To meet the World's worm { 
To try to get the twa to gree, 
An' name the airles an' the fee, 

In legal mode an' form : 
I ken he weel a Snick can draw, 

When simple bodies iet him ; 
An' if a Devil be at a', 

In faith he's sure to get him. 

To phrase you an' praise you, 

Yekenyou,Laureat scorns : 

The prayer still, you share stili, 

Of grateful Minstrel Burns. 



* Master Tootie then lived in Mauchline ; a dealer 
in Cows. It was his common practice to cut the nicks 
or markings from the horns of" cattle, to disguise their 
age.— He was an artful trick contriving character; 
hence he is called a Snick-drower. In the Poet s A*- 
dress to the Deil," he styles that august personagu 
an auld, snicMrawing dog I ^^ ^ ^ 



126 



BURNS' POEMS. 



TO MR. M'ADAM 

OP GRAIGEN-GILLAN. 

In answer to an obliging Letter he sent in the com- 
mencement of *'«), Poetic Career. 

SIR, o'er a gill I gat your cam, 

I trow it made me proud ; 
Bee wha taks notice o' the bard 1 

I lap and cry'd fu' loud. 

Now deil-ma-care about their jaw, 

The senseless, gawky million ; 
I'll cock my nose aboon them a', 

l'mroos'dby Craigen-Gillan ! 

'Twas noble, Sir ; 'twas like yoursel, 

To great your high protection : 
A great man's smile ye ken fu' well, 

Is ay a blest infection. 

Tho ', by his banes wha in a tub 

Match'd Macedonian Sandy 1 
On my ain legs thro' dirt an' dub, 

I independent stand ay. — 

And when those legs to guid warm kail, 

Wi' welcome canna bear me ; 
A lee dyke-side, a sybow-tail, 

And bar-ley-scoue shall cheer me. 

Heaven spare you lang to kiss the breath 

O' monyfiow'ry simmers ! 
And bless your bounie lasses baith, 

I'm tald the're loosome kimmers I 

And God biesu young Dunaskin's laird, 

The blossom of our gentry ! 
And may he wear an auld mans beard 

A credit to his country. 

TO CAPTAIN RIDDEL, 

GLENRIDDEL. 

{Extempore Lines on returning a Newspaper.) 

Ellisland, Monday Evening. 

YOUR news and review, Sir, I've read through and 
through, Sir, 

With little admiring or blaming ; 
The papers are barren of home-news or foreign, 

No murderers or rapes worth the naming. 

Our friends the reviewers, those chippers and hewers, 

Are judges of mortar and stone, Sir, 
But olmeeJ, or unmeet, in afabrick complete, 

I'll boldly pronounce they are none, Sir. 

My goose-quill too rude is, to tell all your goodness 

Bestow'd on your servant, the Poet ; 
Would to God I had one like abeam of the sun, 

And then all the world, Sir, should know it I 



TERRAUGHTY,* 

ON HIS BIRTH-DAT. 

v HEALTH to the Maxwells' vet'ran Chief I 
Health, ay unsour'd by care cr grief : 
Inspir'd, I turn'd Fate's sibyl leaf, 

This natal morn, 
I see thy life is stuff o' prief, 

Scai ce quite half worn.- 

This day thou metes threescore eleven, 
And I can tell that bounteous Heaven 
(The second sight, ye ken , is given 

To ilka Poet) 
Ou thee a tack o' seven times seven 

Will yet bestow it. 

If envious buckies view wi' sorrow, 

Thy lengthen'd days on this blest morrow, 

May desolation's lang-teeth'd harrow, 

Nine miles an hour, 
Rake them, like Sodom and Gomorrah, 

In bruustane stoure- - 

But for thy Iriends, and they are mony, 
B.iith honest men and lasses bonnie, 
May couthie fortune, kind and cannic, 

In social glee, 
Wi' mornings blithe and e'enings tunny 

Bless them and thee ! 

Fareweel, auld birkie ! Lord be near ye, 
And then the Deil he daur na steer ye : 
Your friends ay love, yourfaes ay fear ye, 

For me, shame fa' me 
If neist my heart I dinna wear ye, 

While Burns they ca.' m 



TO A LADY : 
With a Present of a Pair of Drinking-Glassei 

FAIR Empre-s of the Poet's soul, 

And Q,ueen of Poetesses ; 
Clarinda, take this little boon, 

This humble pair of glasses.— 

And fill them high with generous juice, 

As generous as your mind ; 
And pledge me in the generous toast — 

" The whole of human kind !" 

" To these who love us .'" — second fill ; 

But riot to those whom we love ; 
Lest we love those who love not us ! 

A third—" to thee and me, love !" 

* Mr. Maxwell, of Terraughty, near Dumfrie*. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



127 



THE VOWELS. 



'Twas where the birch and sounding thong are plied 

The noisy domicile of pedant pride ; 

Where ignorance her darkening vapour throws, 

And cruelty directs the thickening blows ; 

Upon a time, Sir Abece the great, 

In all his pedagogic powers elate 

His awful chair of state resolves to mount, 

And call the trembling vowels to account. 

First enter'd A a grave, broad, solemn wight 
But, ah 1 deform'd, dishonest to the sight ! 
His twisted head look'd backwarj on his way, 
And flagrant from the scourge, he grunted, ai .' 

Reluctant E, stalk'd in ; with piteous grace 
The justling tears ran down his honest face ! 
That name, that well-worn name, and all his own, 
Pale he surrenders at the tyrant's throne 1 
The pedant stifles keen the Roman sound 
Not all his mongrel diphthongs can compound ; 
And next the title following close behind, 
He to the nameless, ghastly wretch assign'd. 

Thecobweb'd gothic dome resounded, Y I 
In sullen vengeance, I, disdain'd, reply : 
The pedant swung his felon cudgel round, 
And knock'd the groaning vowel to the ground 

In rueful apprehension enter'd O, 
The wailing minstrel of despairing wo ; 
Th' Inquisitor of Spain the most expert, 
Might there have learnt new mysteries of his art : 
So grim, deform'd, with horrors entering U, 
His dearest friend and brother scarcely knew 1 

As trembling U stood staring all aghast, 
The pedant in his left hand clutch'd him fast, 
In helpless infant's tears he dipp'd his right, 
Bapliz'd him eu, and kick'd him from his sight. 



SKETCH.* 

A LITTLE, upright, pert, tart, tripping wight, 
And still his precious self his dear delight ; 
Who loves his own smart shadow in the streets , 
Better than e'er the fairest she he meets, 
A man of fashion too, he made his tour, 
Learn'd vive la bagatelle, et vive V 'amour ; 
So travell'd monkeys their grimace improve, 
Polish their grin, nay, sigh for ladies' love. 
Much specious lore, but little understood ; 
Veneering oft outshines the solid wood : 

* This sketch seems to be one of a Series, intended 
for a projected work, under the title " The Poet's 
Progress." This character was sent as a specimen, 
accompanied by a letter to Professor Dugald Stewart , 
in which it is thus noticed. " The fragment beginning 
A little, upright, perl, tart, &c. 1 have not shown to 
any man living, till I now send it to you. It forms the 
postulata, the axioms, the definition of a character, 
which, if it appear at all, shall be placed in a variety of 
lights. This particular part 1 send you merely as a 
ample of my hand at portrait sketching." 



His solid sense — by inches you must tell, 
But mete his cunning by the oid Scots ell ; 
His meddling vanity, a busy fiend ; 
Still making work his selAsh craft must mend 



SCOTS PROLOGUE, 

For Mr. Sutherland's Benefit Night, Dumfries. 

WHAT needs this din about the town o' Lon'on, 
How this new play an' that new sang is comin ? 
Why is outlandish stufl sae meikle courted ? 
Does nonsense mend like whisky, when imported ? 
Is there nae poet, burning keen for fame, 
Will try to gie us sangs and plays at hame 1 
For comedy abroad he need na toil, 
A fool and knave are plants of every soil ; 
Nor need he hunt as far as Rome and Greece 
To gather matter for a serious piece ; 
There's themes enough in Caledonian story, 
Would show the tragic muse in a' her glory. — 

Is there no daring bard will rise, and tell 
How glorious Wallace stood, how, hapless, fell ? 
Where are the muses fled that could produce 
A drama worthy o' the name o' Bruce ; 
How here, even here, he first unsheath'd the sword 
'Gainst mighty England and her guilty lord ; 
And after mony a bloody, deathless doing. 
Wrench'd his dear country from the jaws of ruin * 
O for a Shakspeare or an Otway scene, 
To draw the lovely, hapless Scottish Q.ueen ! 
Vain all th' omnipotence of female charms 
'Gainst headlong, ruthless, mad Rebellion's arms. 
She fell, but fell with spirit truly Roman. 
To glut the vengeance of a rival woman : 
A woman, tho' the phrase may seem uncivil. 
As able and as cruel as the Devil ! 
One Douglas lives in Home's immortal page, 
But Douglases were heroes every age : 
And tho' your fathers, prodigal of life, 
A Douglas followed to the martial strife, 
Perhaps if bowls row right, and Right succeeds, 
Ye yet may follow where a Douglas lead : 

As ye hae generous done, if a' the laud 
Would take the muses' servants by the hand ; 
Not only hear, but patronise, befriend them, 
And where ye justly can commend, commend them, 
And aiblins when they winna stand the test, 
Wink hard and say, the folks hae done their best ! 
Would a' the land do this, then I'll be caution 
Ye'U soon hae poets o' the Scottish nation, 
Will gar fame blaw until her trumpet crack, 
And warsle time an' lay him on his back ! 

For us and for our stage should ony spier, 
" Whose aught thae chiels maks a' this bustle here i 
My best leg foremost, I'll set up my brow, 
We have the honour to belong to you ! 
We're yourown bairns, e'en guide us as ye like, 
But like good mithers, shore before ye strike, — 
And gratefu ! still I hope ye'll ever find us, 
For a' the patronage and meikle kindness 
We've gotfrae a' professions, sets and ranks : 
God help us 1 we're but poor— ye'se get but thanks. 



128 



BURNS' POEMS. 



EXTEMPORANEOUS EFFUSION 
ON BEING 

APPOINTED TO THE EXCISE. 
SEARCHING auld wives' barrels 

Och, ho ! the day ! 
That clarty barm should stain my laurels 

But — what '11 ye say I 
These muvin' things ca'd wives and weans 
Wad muve the very heart's o' stanes ! 



On seeing ine beautiful Seat of Lord G. 

W HAT dost thou in that mansion fair 1 

Flit, G , and find 

Some narrow, dirty, dungeon cave, 

The picture of thy mind 1 



On the Same. 

No Stewart art thou G , 

The Stewarts all were brave ; 

Besides, the Stewarts were but fools, 
Not one of them a knave. 



On the Same. 

BRIGHT ran thy line, O G , 

Thro' many a far-fam'dsire I 

So ran the far-fam'd Roman way, 
So ended in a mire. 



To the Same, on the Author being threatened with 
his Resentment. 

SPARE me thy vengeance, G , 

In quiet let me live : 
I ask no kindness at thy hand, 
For thou hast none to give. 



THE DEAN OF FACULTY. 

A NEW BALLAD. 
TUNE—" The Dragon of Wantley." 
DIRE was the hate at old Harlaw, 

That Scot to Scot did carry ; 
And dire the discord Langside saw, 

For beauteous, hapless Mary : 
But Scot with Scot ne'er met so hot, 

Orwere more in fury seen, Sir, 
Than 'twixt Hal and Bob for the famous job— 

Who should be Faculty's Dean. Sir.— 

This Hal for genius, wit, and lore, 

Among the first was number'd ; 
But pious Bob, 'mid learning's store, 

Commandment tenth rememember'd.— 



Yet simple Bob the victory got, 

And won his heart's desire ; 
Which shows that heaven can boil the pot, 

Though the devil p — s in the fire.— 

Squire Hal, besides, had in this case, 

Pretensions rather brassy, 
For talents to deserve a place 

Are qualifications saucy ; 
So their worships of the Faculty, 

Q.uite sick of merit's rudeness, 
Chose oi j who should owe it all, d'ye see 

To their gratis grace and goodness. 

As once on Fisgah purg'd was the sight 

Of a son of Circumcision, 
So may be, on this Pisgah height, 

Rob's purblind, mental vision : 
Nay, Bobby's mouth may be open'd yet, 

Till for eloquence you hail him, 
And swear he has the Angel met 

That met the Ass of Balaam.— 



EXTEMPORE IN THE COURT OF 
TUNE— '« Gillicrankie." 
LORD A TE. 

HE clench'd his pamphlets in his fist, 

He quoted and he hinted, 
Till in a declamation-mist, 

His argument he tint it : 
He gaped for 't, he graped for 't, 

He fand it was awa, man ; 
But what in common sense came short, 

He eked out wi' law, man. 



MR. ER— NE. 

Collected Harry stood awee, 

Then open'd out his at m, man ; 
His lordship sat wi' ruefu' e'e, 

And ey'd the gathering storm, man 
Like wind-driv'n hail itdid assail, 

Or torrents owre a lin, man ; 
The Bench sae wise lift up their eyen 

Half-wauken'd wi' the din, man. 



VERSES TO J. HANSEN. 



[ The Person to whom his Poem on shooting th« Pas- 
ridge is addressed, while Ranken occupied tkt 
Farm of Adamhill, in Ayrshire.^ 



AE day, as death, that gruesome carl, 
I Was driving to the tither warl 

A mixtie-maxtie motley squad, 
' And mony a guilt bespotted lad ; 



BURNS' POEMS. 



129 



Black gowns of each denomination, 
And thieves of every rank and station, 
From him that wears the star and garter, 
To him that wintles in a halter : 
Asham'd himself to see the wretches, 
He mutters, glow'rin at the bitches, 
" By G-d I'll not be seen bebint them, 
Nor 'mang the sp'ritual core present them, 
Without, at least ae honest man, 

To grace this d d infernal clan." 

By Adamhill a glance he threw, 
" L — D G-d !" quoth he, " I have it now 
There's just the man 1 want, in faith," 
And quickly stoppit Ranken's breath. 



On hearing that there was Falsehood in the Rev. 
Dr. B 's very Looks. 

THAT there is falsehood in his looks 

I must and will deny ; 
They say their master is a knave— 

And sure they do not lie. 



On a Schoolmaster in Cleish Parish, Fifeshire. 



HERE lie Willie M— hie's banes, 
O Satan, when ye tak him, 

Gie him the schulin of your weans ; 
For clever Deils he'll mak em ! 



ADDRESS TO GENERAL DUMOURIER. 

(A Parody on Robin Adair.) 

YOU'RE welcome to Despots, Dumourier ; 

You're welcome to Despots, Dumourier. — 

How does Dampiere do ! 

Ay, and Bournonville too ? 

Why did they not come along with you, Dumourier ? 

I will fight France with you, Dumourier.— 

I will fight France with you, Dumourier :— 

I will fight France with you, 

I -will take my chance with you ; 

By my soul I'll dance a dance with you, Dumourier. 



Then let us fight about, Du 

Then let us fight about, Dumourier ; 

Then let us fight about, 

Till freedom's spark is out, 

Then we'll be d-mned no doubt— Dumourier. 



ELEGY ON THE YEAR 1788. 
A SKETCH. 
FOR Lords or Kings I dinna mourn, 
E'sn let them die— for that they're born : 



But oh ! prodigious to reflec ! 
A Towmont, Sirs, is gane to wreck ! 
O Eighty-eight, m thy sma' space 
What dire events hae taken place! 
Of what enjoyments thou hast reft us I 
In what a pickle thou hast left us 1 

The Spanish empire's tint a head, 
An' my auld teethless Bawtie's dead ; 
Thetulzie's teugh 'tween Pitt an' Fox, 
And 'tween our Maggie's twa wee cocks ; 
The tane is game, a bluidie devil, 
But to the hen-birds unco civil ; 
The tither's something dour o' treadin, 
But better stuff ne'er claw'd a midden — 

Ye ministers, come mount the poupet, 
An' cry till ye be haerse an' roupet, 
For Eighty-eight, he wish'd you weel, 
An' gied you a' baith gear an' meal ; 
E'enmonya plack, and mony a' peck, 
Ye ken yoursels, for little feck ! 

Ye bonnie lasses, dight your een, 
For some o' you hae tint a frien' ; 
In Eighty-eight, ye ken, was ta'en 
What ye'll ne'er hae to gie again. 

Observe the very nowt an' sheep, 
How dowf and dowie now they creep ; 
Nay, even the yirth itsel does cry, 
For E'nbrugh wells are grutten dry. 

O Eighty-nine, thou's but a bairn, 
An' no o'er ai'.ld, I hope to learn I 
Thou beardless boy, I pray tak care, 
Thou now has get thy Daddy's chair. 

Nae hand-cuffd, mizzl'd, hap-shackl'd Regent, 

But, like himsel a full free agent. 

Be sure ye follow out the plan 

Nae waur than he did, honest man ; 

As muckle better as you can. 

January 1, 17S9. 



Written under the Portrait of Fergusson, the Poet, 
in a copy of that author's works presented to a 
young Lady in Edinburgh, March 19, 1787. 

CURSE on ungrateful man, that can be pleas'd, 
And yet can starve the author of the pleasure ! 
O thou my elder brother in misfortune, 
By far my elder brother in the muses, 
With tears I pity thy unhappy fate ! 
Why is the bard unpitied by the world, 
Yet has so keen a relish of its pleasures ? 



F 2 



130 



BURNS' POEMS. 



SONGS. 



UP IN THF MORNING EARLY.* 

UP in the morning'' s no for me, 

Up in the morning early ; 
When a' the hills are covered wV snaw, 

I'm sure it's winter fairly. 

COLD blaws the wind frae east to west, 

The drift is driving sairly ; 
Sae loud and shrill's I hear the blast, 

I'm sure it's winter fairly 

The birds sit cluttering in the thorn, 

A' day they fare but sparely ; 
And lang's the night frae e'en to morn, 

I'm sure it's winter fairly. 

Up in the morning, (fc. 



I DREAM'D I LAY WHERE FLOWERS WERE 

SPRINGING.! 

I DREAM'D I lay where flowers were springing, 

Gaily in the sunny beam ; 
List'ning to the wild birds singing, 

By a falling, crystal stream : 
Straight the sky grew black and daring ; 

Thro' the woods the whirlwinds rave ; 
Trees with aged arms were warring 

O'er the swelling, drumlie wave. 

Such was my life's deceitful morning, 

Such the pleasures I enjoy'd ; 
But lang or noon, loud tempests storming 

A'myflow'ry bliss destroy'd. 
Thn' fickle fortune has deceived me, 

She promis'd fair, and perform'd but ill ; 
Of mony a joy and hope bereav'd me, 

I bear a heart shall support me still. 



SONG.J 
BEWARE 0' BONNIE ANN. 



Ye gallants bright 1 red you right, 
Beware o ! bonnie Ann ; 



The chorus is old. 



t These two stan7.a3 I composed when I was seven- 
teen, and are among the oldest of my printed pieces. 
Burns' Reliques, p. 212. 

J I composed this song out of compliment to Miss Ann 
Mas.terton, the daughter of my friend Allan Masterton, 
Ihe author of the air of Stratha Han's Lament, and two 
«r three others in this work. Burns' Relioues, p. 266. 



Her comely face sae fu' o'grace, 

Your heart she will trepan. 
Her een sae bright, like stars by night, 

Her skin is like the swan ; 
Sae jimply lae'd her gently waist 

That sweetly ye might span. 

Youth, grace, and love, attendant more, 

And pleasure leads the van : 
In a' their charms, and conquering arms. 

They wait on bonnie Ann. 
The captive bands may chain the hands, 

But Jove enslaves the man ; 
Ye gallants braw, I red ye a' 

Beware o' bonnie Ann. 



SONG. 
MY BONNIE MARY.* 

Go fetch to me a pint o' wine, 

An' fill it in a silver tassie'; 
That I may drink before I go, 

A service to my bonnie lassie ; 
The boat rocks at the pier o' Leith ; 

Fu' loud the wind blaws frae tbo ferry ; 
The ship rides by the Berwick-law, 

And I maun lea'e my bonnie Mary. 

The trumpets sound, the banners fly, 

The glittering spears are ranked ready j 
The shouts o' war are heard afar, 

The battle closes thick and bloody ; 
But it's not the roar o' sea or shore 

Wad make me langerwish to tarry ; 
Nor shouts o' war that's heard afar, 

It's leaving thee, my bonnie Mary. 



THERE'S A YOUTH IN THIS CITY. 

THERE'S a youth in this city, it were a great pity 

That he from our lasses should wander awa ; 
For he's bonnie and braw, weel-favour'd with a' 

And his hair has a natural buckle and a'. 
His coat is the hue of his bonnet sae blue ; 

His feck-H is white as the new-driven snaw ; 
His hose they are -blae, and hisshoon like the slae, 

And his clear siller buckles they dazzle us a' 
His coat is the hue, &c. 

For beauty and fortune the laddie's been courtin 
Weel-featur'd, weel-tocher'd, weel-mounted and 
braw : 



Oswold ; the first half etan-~ 



t This air is claimed by Niel Gow, who calls it hU 
lament for his brother. The first half-stania of the 

song is old. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



131 



But chiefly the siller, that gars him gang till her, 
The pennie's the jewel that beautifies a'. — 

There's Meg wi' the mailen, that fain wad a haen 
him, 
And Susy whase daddy was Laird o* the ha' ; 

There's lang-tocher'd Nancy maist fetters his fancy, 

—But the laddie's dear sel he lo'es dearest of a' 



SONG. 
MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS.* 

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here : 

My heart's in the Highland's a-chasing the deer ; 
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roc, 

My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go. 
Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North 

The birthplace of valour, the country of worth ; 
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove, 

The lulls of the Highlands for ever I iove. 

Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow 

Farewell to the straths and green valleys below : 
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods ; 

Farewell to the torrents and loud pouring floods. 
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here, 

My heart's in the Highlands a chasing the deer j 
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe, 

My heart's in the Highlands, wherever 1 go. 



THE RANTING DOG THE DADDIE O'T. 

O WHA my babie-clouts will buy ? 

Wha will tent me when I cry? 
Wha will kiss me w'aare I lie ? 

The rantin dog (he daddie o't. — 

Wha will own he did the faut ? 

Wha will buy my groanin maut ? 
Wha will tell me how to ca't ? 

The rantin dog the daddie o't. 

When I mount the creepie-chair, 

Wha will sit beside m» there ? 
Gie me Rob, I seek nae mair, 

The ranting dog the daddie o't.— 

Wha will crack to me my lane ? 

Wha will mak me fidgin fain ? 
Wha will kiss me o'er again ? 

The rantin dog the daddie o't. — 



SONG. 

I DO CONFESS THOU ART SAE FAIR. 
DO confess thou art sae fair, 
I wad been o'er the lugs in luve ; 

• The first half stanza is old. 



Had I na found the slightest prayer 
That lips could speak, thy heart could rauva, 

I do confess thee sweet, but find 
Thou art sae thriftless o' thy sweets, 

Thy favours are the silly wind 
That kisses ilka tiling it meets. 

See yonder rose-bud, rich in dew, 

Amang its native briers sae coy 
How sune it tines its scent and hue 

When pu'd and worn a common toy 1 

Sic fate ere lang shall thee betide, 
Tho' thou may gayly bloom a while ; 

Yet sune thou shaltbe thrown aside, 
Like ony common weed and vile. 



SONG." 

TUNE—" Craigie-burn Wood."T 

Beyond thee, dearie, beyond thee, dearie. 
And Oto be lying beyond thee, 

sweetly, soundly, wee! may he sleep, 
TTiat's laid in die bed beyond thee. 

SWEET closes the evening on Craigie-burn- wood, 

And blithly awakens the morrow ; 
But the pride of the spring in the Craigie-burn-wooJ 

Can yield to me nothing but sorrow. 

Beyond-thee, SfC 

I see the spreading leaves and flowers, 

1 hear the wild birds singing ; 
But pleasure they hae nane lor me, . 

While care my heart is wringing. 

Beyond thee, tfC 

I canna tell, I maunna tell, 

I dare na for your anger ; 
But secret love will break my heart, 

If I conceal it langer. 

Beyond thee, IfC. 

I see the gracefu', straight and tall, 

I see thee sweet and bonnie, 
But oh, what will my torments be, 

If thou refuse thy Johnie ! 

Beyond thee, IfC 

To see thee in anither's arms, 

In love to lie and languish, 
'Twad be my dead, that will he seen, 

My heart wad burst wi' anguish. 

Beyond thee, SfC 

* It is remarkable of this place that it is the confine 
of that country where the greatest part of our Lowland 
music (so far from the title, works, &c. we can local- 
ize it) hasbeen composed. From Craigie-burn, near 
Moffat, until one reaches the West Highlands, wehavs 
scarcely one slow air of any antiquity. 

The songwas composed on a passion which a Mr. 
Gillespie, a particular friend of mine, hadfor a Miss 
Lorimer, afterwards a Mrs. Whelpriale. The young 
lady was born at Craigie-burn-wood.— The- chorus ia 
part of an old fiolish ballad. 

Bums' Reliques, p. 284. 

t The chorus is old.— Another copy of this will b« 
found ante, p. 101 



132 



BURNS' POEMS. 



But Jeanie, say thou wilt be mine, 
Say, t.hou lo'es nane before me J 

And a' my days o' life to come 
I'll gratefully adore thee. 

Beyond thee, tfc. 



SONG. 

YON WILD MOSSY MOUNTAINS. 

YON wild mossy mountains sae lofty and wide, 
That nurse in their bosom the youth o' the Clyde, 
Where the grouse lead their coveys thro' the heather to 

feed, 
And the shepherd tents his flock as he pipes on his reed. 
Wltcre the grouse, Sfc. 

Not Gowrie's rich valley, norForth's sunny shores, 
To me hae the charms o' yon wild, mossy moors ; 
For there, by a lanely, and sequester'd stream, 
Besides a sweet lassie, my thought and my dream. 

Amang thae wild mountains shall still be my path, 
Ilk stream foaming down its ain green, narrow strath; 
For there, wi' ray lassie, the day lang I rove, 
VVhile o'er us unheeded fly the swift hours o' love. 



She is not the fairest, altho' she is fair ; 
U' nice education but sma' in her share : 
Her parentage humble as humble can be ; 
But I lo'e the dear lassie because she lo'es me. 

To beauty what man but maun yield him a prize, 
In her amour of glances, and blushes, and sighs ; 
And when wit and refinement ha' polished her darts. 
They dazzle our een, as they fly to our hearts. 

But kindness, sweet kindness, in the fond sparkling e'e. 
Has lustre outshining the diamond to me ; 
And the heart-beating love, as I'm clasp'd in her arms, 
O, these are my lassie's all conquering charms. 



SONG. 

WHA IS THAT AT MY BOWER DOOR? 

WHA is that at my bower door? 

O wha is it but Findlay; 
Then gae your gate ye'se nae be here! 

Indeed maun I, quo' Findlay. 
What mak ye sae like a thief? 

O come and see, quo' Findlay; 
Before the morn ye'U work mischief? 

Indeed will I, quo' Findlay. 

Gif I rise and let you in ? 

Let me in, quo' Findlay; 
Ye'il keep me waukin wi' your din ; 

Indeed will I, quo' Findlay. 
In my bower if ye should stay ? 

Let me stay, quo' Findlay ; 
I fear ye'll bide till break o' day ; 

Indeed will I, quo' Findlay. 



Here this night if ye remain, 

I'll remain, quo' Findlay ; 
I dread ye'll learn the gate again ; 

Indeed will I, quo' Findlay; 
What may pass within this bower, 

Let it pass, quo' Findlay ; 
Ye maun conceal till your last hour ; 

Indeed will I, quo' Findlay I 



SONG.* 

TUNE—" The Weaver and his Shuttle, O." 

MY Father was a Farmer upon the Carrick border, O 

And carefully he bred me in dpcency and order, O 

He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne'er a far* 

thing, O 
For without an honest manly heart, no man was worth 

regarding, O. 

Then out into the world my course I did determine. Q 

Tho' to be rich was not my wish, yet to be great wa» 
charming, O 

My talents they were not the worst ; nor yet my edu- 
cation; O 

Resolv'd was I, at least to try, to mend my situation, O. 

In many a way, and vain essay, I courted fortune's fa- 
vour; O 

Some cause unseen, still stept between, to frustrate 
each endeavour ; O 

Sometimes by foes I was o'erpower'd ; sometimes by 
friends forsaken ; O 

And when my hope was at the top, I still was worst 
mistaken, O. 

Then sore harass'd, and tir'd at last, with fortune's 

vain delusion ; O 
I dropt my schemes, like idle dreams, and came to thts 

conclusion ; O 
The past was bad, and the future hid ; its good Or 111 

untried ; O 
But the present hour was in my pow'r, and so I would 

enjoy it, O. 

No help, nor hope, nor view had I ; nor person to bo* 

friend me ; O 
So I must toil, and sweat and broil, and labour to sue* 

tain me, O 
To plough and sow, to reap and mow, my father bred 

me early ; O 
For one, he said, to labour bred, was a match for for. 

tune fairly, O. 

Thus all obscure, unknown, and poor, thro' life I'm 
doom'd to wander, O 

Till down my weary bones I lay in everlasting slum- 
ber: O 

No view nor care, but shun whate'er might breed me 
pain or sorrow ; O 

I live to-day, as well'B I may, regardless of to-mor 
row, O. 

« Tins soug is wild rhapsody, miserably deficient in 
versification, but as the sentiments are the genuine 
feelings of my heart, for that reason I have a particular 
pleasure in conning it over. Burn's lieliques, p. 329. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



133 



Bat cheerful still, I am as well, as a monarch in a pa- 
lace, U 

Tho' fortune's frown still hunts me down, with all her 
wonted malice ; O 

I make indeed, my daily bread, but ne'er can make it 
farther; O 

But as daily bread is all I need, I do not much regard 
her, O. 

When sometimes by my labour I earn a little money, O 
Some unforeseen misfortune comes generally upon 

me; O 
Mischance, mistake, or by neglect, or my good-natur'd 

folly ; O 
But come what will, I've sworn it still, I'll ne'er be 

melancholy, O. 

you who follow wealth and power with unremit- 
ting ardour, O 

The more in this you look for bliss, you leave your view 
the farther ; 

Had you the wealth Potosi boasts, or nations to adore 
you, O 

A cheerful hearted honest clown I will prefer before 
you, O. 



SONG. 

THO' cruel fate should bid us part, 

As far's the pole and line ; 
Her dear idea round my heart 

Should tenderly entwine. 

Tho' mountains frown and deserts howl, 

And oceans roar between ; 
Yet, dearer than my deathless soul, 

I still would love my Jean. 



SONG. 

AE fond kiss and then we sever ; 
Ae larewell, alas, for iver ! 
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee, 
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee. 
Who shall say that fortune grieves him 
While the star of hope she leaves him? 
Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me ; 
Dark despair around benights me. 

I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy, 
Naething could resist my Nancy : 
But to see her, was to love her ; 
Love but her, and love forever. 
Had we never lov'd sae kindly, 
Had we never lov'd sae blindly, 
Never met — or never parted, 
We had ne'er been broken-hearted. 

Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest ! 
Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest 
Thine be ilka joy and treasure, 
Peace, enjoyment, love and pleasure 1 



Ae fond kiss, and then we sever ; 

Ae fareweel, alas, for ever I 

Deep in heart-wrung tears I pledge thee, 

Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee. 



' SONG. 

NOW BANK AN' BRAE ARE CLAITH'D 
IN GREEN. 

Now bank an' brae are claith'din green 

An' scatter'd cowslips sweetly spring, 
By Girvan's fairy haunted stream 

The birdies flit on wanton wing. 
To Cassillis' banks when e'eningfa's, 

There wi' my Mary let me flee, 
There catch her ilka glance cf love, 

The bonnie blink o' Mary's e'e 

The child wha' boasts o' warld's wealth, 

Is aften laird o' meikle care ; 
But Mary she is a' my ain, 

Ah, fortune canna gie me mair! 
Then let me range my Cassillis' banks, 

Wi' her the lassie dear to me, 
And catch her ilka glance o' love, 

The bonnie blink o' Mary's e'e ! 



SONG. 

THE BONNIE LAD THAT'S FAR AWA 

O HOW can I be blithe and glad, 
Or how can I gang brisk and braw, 

When the bonnie lad that I lo'ebest 
Is o'er the hills and far awa ? 

It's no the frosty winter wind, 
It's no the driving drift andsnaw ; 

But ay the tear comes in my e'e, 
To think on him that 's far awa. 

My father pat me frae his door, 
My friends they hae disown'd me a' 

But I hae ane will tak my part, 
The bonnie lad that 's far awa. 

A pair o' gloves he gave to me, 

And silken snoods he gave me twa ; 

And I will wear them for his sake, 
The bonnie lad that 's far awa. 

The weary winter soon will pass, 

And spring will deed the birken-shaw , 

And my sweet babie will be born, 
And he'll come hame that 'a far awa. 



134 



BURNS' POEMS. 



SONG. 

OUT over the Forth I look to the north, 
But what is the north and its Highlands to me ? 

The south nor the east gie ease to my breast, 
The far foreign land, or the wild rolling sea. 

But I look to the west, when I gae to rest, 
That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be ; 

For far in the west lives he I lo'e best, 
The lad that is dear to my babie and me. 



SONG. 

I'LL AY CA' IN BY YON TOWN. 

I'LL ay ca' in by yon town, 
And by yon garden green, again ; 

I'll ay ca' in by yon town, 
And see my bonnie Jannie again. 

There's nane sail ken, there's nane sail guess 
What brings me back the gate again, 

But she, my fairest, faithfu' lass, 
And stowlins we shall meet again. 

She'll wander by the aikin tree, 
When trystin-time* draws near again; 

And when her lovely form 1 see, 
O h&ith, she's doubly dear again! 



SONG. 

WHISTLE O'ER THE LAVE O'T 
FIRST when Maggy was my care, 
Heav'n, I thought, was in the air ; 
Now we're married — spier nae mair— 

Whistle o'er the lave ui't.— 
Meg was meek, and Meg was mild, 
Bonnie Meg was nature's child — 
—Wiser men thanme's beguil'd : 

Whistle o'er the lave on't. 

How we live, my Meg and me, 
How we love and how we 'gree, 
I care na by how few may see : 

Whistle o'er the lave o't.— 
What I wish were maggot's meat, 
Dish'd up in her winding sheet, 
I could write — but Meg maun see't ; 

Whistle o'er the lave o't.— 



SONG. 

YOUNG JOCKEY. 

YOUNG Jockey was the blithest lad 
In a' our town or here awa ; 

T~ys tin-time — The time of appointment 



Fu' blithe he whistled at the gaud* 
Fu' lightly danc'd he in the ha . 

He roos'd my e'en sue bonnie blue, 
Heroos'dmy waist sae gently sma; 

An' ay my heart came to my mou, 
When ne'er a body heard or saw. 

My Jockey toils upon the plain, 

Tin o' wind and weet, thro' frost and snavr 
And o'er the lee I leuk fu' fain 

When Jockey's owsen hamewardca', 
An' ay the night comes round again, 

When in his arms he taks me a' : 
And ay he vows he'll be my ain 

As lang's he has a breath to draw. 



SONG. 

M'PHERSON'S FAREWELL. 
TUNE—" M'Pherson's Lament." 

FAREWELL ye dungeons dark and Strong 

The wretches destinie ! 
M'Pherson's time will not be long, 

On yonder gallows tree. 

Sae rantingly, sae wantonly, 

Sac daimtingly gaed he ; 
He play'd a spring and danc'd it round, 

Below the gallows tree. 

Oh, what is death but parting breath?— 

On moiiy a bloody plain 
I've dar'd his face, and in this place 

I scorn him yet again ? 
Sae rantingly, Sfc. 

Untie these bands from off my hands 

And bring to me my sword ; 
And there's no a man in all Scotland, 

But I'll brave him at a word. 
Sae rantingly, Sfc. 

I've live'd a life of stun and strife ; 

I die by treacherie ; 
It burns my heart I must depart 

And not avenged be. 
Sae rantingly, &c. 

Now farewell light, thou sunshine bright, 

And all beneath the sky ! 
May cowaid shame distain his name, 

The wretch that dares not die ; 
Sae rantingly, &c. 



SONG. 

HERE'S abottle and an honeat friend I 
What wad ye wish for mair, man •• 

Wlia kens, before hislife may end, 
What his share maybe of care, man? 



BURNS' POEMS. 



135 



Then catch the moments aa they fly, 
Aud uee them as ye ought, man ; — 

Believe me, happiness is shy, 
And comes not ay when sought, man. 



SONG. 
TUNE—" Braes o' Balquhidder. 

ril kiss thee yet, yet, 
An' I'll kiss thee o'er again, 

An' I'll kiss thee yet yet, 
My bonnie Peggy Alison! 

ILK care and fear, when thou art near, 

I ever mair defy them, O ; 
Young kings upon their hansel throne 

Are no sae blest as I am, O 1 

I'll kiss thee, 8,-c. 

When in my arms, wi' a thy charms, 
I clasp my countless treasure, O ; 

I seek nae mairo' Heaven to share, 
Than sic a moment's pleasure, ; 
I'll kiss thee, Sfc. 

And by thy een, sae bonnie blue, 
I swear I'm thine for ever, ;— 

And on thy lips I seal my vow, 
And break it shall I never, O I 
I'll kiss thee &c. 



TUNE—" If he be a Butcher neat and trim. 

ON Cessnock banks there lives a lass, 
Could I describe her shape and mien ; 

The graces of her weelfar'd face, 
And the glancin of her sparklin een. 

She's fresher than the morning dawn 

When rising Phoebus first is seen, 
Wiien dew-drops twinkle o'er the lawn • 

An' she's twa glancin spariing een. 

She's stately like yon youthful ash, 
That grows the cowslip braes between, 

And shoots its head a h ove each bush ; 
An' she's twa glancin sparklin een. 

She's spotless as the flow'ring thorn 
With flow'rs so white and leaves so green, 

When purest in the dewy morn ; 
An' ahe's twa glancin sparkrin een. 

Her looks are like the sportive lamb. 

When flow'ry May adorns the scene, 
That wantons round its bleating dam ; 

An' she's twa glancin sparklin e'en. 

Her hair is like the curling mist 
That shades the mountain-side at e'en, 



When flow'r-reviving rains are past J 
An' she's twa glancin sparklin een. 

Her forehead's like the show'ry bow, 
When shining sunbeams intervene 

And gild the distant mountain's brow ; 
An' she's twa glancin sparklin een. 

Her voice is like the ev'ning thrush 
That sings in Cessnock bajiks unseen, 

While his mate sits nestling in the bush ; 
An' she's twa glancin sparklin een. 

Her lips are like the cherries ripe, 

That sunny walls from Boreas screen, 

They tempt the taste and charm the sight; 
An' she's twa glancin sparklin een. 

Her teeth are like a flock of sheep, 
With fleeces newly washen clean, 

That slowly mount the rising steep ; 
An' she's twa glancin sparklin een. 

Her breath is like the fragrant breeze 
That gently stirs the blosspm'd bean, 

When Phoebus sinks behind the seas ; 
An' she twa glancin sparklin een. 

But it's not her air, her form, her face, 
Tho' matching beauty's fabled queen, 

But the mind that shines in ev'ry grace, 
An' chiefly in her sparklin een. 



WAE IS MY HEART. 

WAE is my heart, and the tear's in my e'e ; 
Lang, lang joy's been a stranger to me ; 
Forsaken and friendless my burden I bear, 
And the r weet voice o' pity ne'er sounds in my'ear. 

Love, thou hast pleasure ; and deep hae I loved ; 
Love, thou hast sorrows ; and sair hae I proved ; 
But this bruised heart that now bleeds in my breast, 
I'can feel by its throbbings will soon be at rest. 

O if I were, where happy I hae been ; 
Down by yon stream and yon bonnie castle gteta : 
For there he is wand'ring and musing on me, 
Wha wad soon dry the tear frae Phillis's e'e. 



TUNE—" Banks of Banna. 

YESTREEN I had a pint o' wine, 

A place where body saw na' ; 
Yestreen iay on this breast o' mine 

The gowden locks of Anna. 
The hungry Jew in wilderness 

Rejoicing o'er his manna, 
Was naething to my hiney bliss 

Upon the lips of Anna. 



36 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Ye monarchs, tak the east and west, 

Frae Indus to Savanna ! 
Gie me within my straining grasp 

The melting form of Anna. 
There I'll despise imperial charms, 

An Empress or Sultana, 
While dying raptures in her arms 

I give and take with Anna 1 

Awa thou flounting god o' day 1 

Awa thou pale Diana ! 
Ilk star gae hide thy twinkling ray 

When I'm to meet my Anna. 
Come, in thy raven plumage, night, 

Sun, moon, and stars withdrawn a' 
And bring an angel pen to write 

My transports wi' my Anna ; 



SONG.* 

THE Deil cam fiddling thro' the town, 
And danc'd awa wi' the exciseman ; 

And ilka wife cry'd, " Auld Mahoun, 
We wish you luck o' the prize man. 

" We'llmak ourmaut, and brew our drink, 
We'll dance and sing and rejoice man ; 

And mony thanks to the muckle black Deil, 
That danc'd awa wi' the Exciseman. 

" There's threesome reels, and foursome reels, 
There's hornpipes and strathspeys, man ; 

But the ae best dance e'er cam to our Ian,' 
Was — the Deil's awa wi' the Exciseman. 
We'llmak our maut, Sfc. 



SONG. 

POWERS celestial, whose protection 

Ever guards the virtuous fair, 
While in distant climes I wander 

Let my Mary be your care : 
Let her form sae fair and faultless, 

fair and faultless as your own ; 
Let my Mary's kindred spirit, 

Draw your choicest influence down. 

Make the gales you waft around her, 

Soft and peaceful as her breast : 
Breathing in the breeze that fans her 

Sooth her bosom into rest : 
Guardian angeis, O protect her, 

When in distant lands I roam ; 
10 realms unknown while fate exiles me. 

Make her bosom still my home.f 

* At a meeting of his brother Excisemen in Dum- 
fries, Burns, being called upon for a Song handed 
these verses extempore to the President written on the 
back of a letter. 

t Probably written on Highland Mary, on the eve of 
tkt Poet's departure to the West Indies. 



HUNTING SONG. 

I RED YOU BEWARE AT THE HUNTING. 

The heather wa9 blooming, the meadows mawn, 
Our lads gaed a-hunting, ae day at the dawn, 
O'er moors and o'er mosses and mony a glen, 
At length they discover'd a bonnie moor-hen. 

Ir.ed you beware at the hunting, young men; 
I redyou beware at the hunting, young men : 
Tak some on the wing, and some as they spring, 
But cannily steal on the bonnie moor-hen. 

Sweet brushing the dew from the brown heather bells 
Her colours betray'd her on yon mossy fells ; 
Her plumage outlustred the pride o' the spring, 
And O ! as she wantoned gay on the wing. 

I red, !fC. 

Auld Phcebus himsel, as he peep'd o'er the bill; 
In spite at her plumage he tried his skill ; 
He levell'd his rays where she bask'd on the brae— 
His rays were outshone, and but marked where she lay. 
/ red, tfc. 

They hunted the valley, they hunted the hill ; 
The best of our lads wi' the best o' their skill ; 
But still as the fairestshe sat in their sight, 
Then, whirr I she was over, a mile at a flight !— 
Ired, Sre. 



YOUNG PE«G7. 
YOUNG Peggy blooms our bonniest lass, 

.Her blush is like the morning, 
The rosy dawn, the springing grass, 

With early gems adorning : 
Her eyes outshine the radiant beams 

That gild the passing shower, 
And glitter o'er the crystal streams, 
And cheer each fresh'ning flower. 

Her lips more than the cherries bright, 

A richer die has grae'd them, 
They charm th' admiring gazer's sigh'., 

And sweetly tempt to taste them : 
Her smile is as the ev'ning mild, 

When feather'd pairs are courting, 
And little lambkins wanton wild, 

In playful bands disporting. 

Were Fortune lovely Peggy's foe, 

Such sweetness would relent her, 
As blooming Spring unbends the brow 

Of surly, savage Winter. 
Detraction's eyes no aim can gain 

Her winning powers to lessen : 
And fretful envy grins in vain, 

The poison'd tooth to fasten. 

Ye pow'rs of Honour, Love, and Truth, 

From ev'ry ill defend her ; 
Inspire the highly favour'd youth 

The destinies intend her ; 



BURNS' POEMS. 



137 



Still fan the sweet connubial flame 
Responsive in each bosom ; 

And bless the dear parental name 
Willi many a filial blossom.* 



UNE— " The King of France, he rade a Race. 

AMANG the trees when humming bees 

At buds and flowers were hanging, O 
Auld Caledon drew out her drone, 

And to her pipe was singing ; O 
'Twas pibroch, sang, strathspey, or reels, 

She dirl'd them aff,fu' clearly, O 
When there cam a yell o' foreign squeels, 

That dang her tapsalteerie, O — 

Their capon craws and queer ha ha's, 

They made our lugs grow eerie, O 
The hungry bike did scrape an pike 

Till we were wae and weary ; O 
But a royal ghaist wlia ance was cas'd 

A prisoner aughteen year awa, 
He fir'd a fiddler in the North 

That dang them tapsalteerie, O 



TUNE—" John Anderson my Jo. 

ONE night as I did wander, 

When corn begins to shoot, 
I sat me down to ponder, 

Upon an auld tree root : 
Auld Ayreranby before me, 

And bicker'd to the seas ; 
A cushat crowded o'er me 

That echoed thro' the braes. 



TUNE—" Daintie Davie." 

THERE was a lad born at Kyle.t 
But what na day o' what na style 
I doubt it's hardly worth the while 
To be sae nice wi' Robin. 

Robin was a rovin' Boy, 

Rantiri ravin*} rantin' rovin', 

* This was one of the Poet's earliest compositions. 
It is copied from a MS. book, which he had before his 
first publication. 

t Kyle— 3. district of Ayrshire. 



Robin was a rovin' Boy, 
Rantin' rovin' Robin. 

Our monarch's hindmost year but an* 
Was five and twenty days begun, 
•Twas then a blast o' Janwar Win' 
Blew hansel in on Robin. 

The gossip keekit in his loof, 
Q,uo' echo wha lives will see the proof, 
This waly boy will be nae coof, 
1 think we'll ca' him Robin. 

He'll hae misfortunes great and sma' 
But ay a heart aboon them a' ; 
He'll be a credit till us a', 
We'll a' be proud o' Robin. 

But sure as three times three mak nine, 
I see by ilka score and line, 
This chap will dearly like our kin', 
So leeze me on thee, Robin. 

Guid faith quo scho I doubt you, Sir, 
Ye gar the lasses * * * * 
But twenty fauts ye mayhaewaur 
So blessin's on thee, Robin. 

Robin teas a rovin Boy, 
Rantin' rovin', rantin' rovin'; 

Robin was a rovin' Boy, 
Rantin' rovin' Robin. 



TUNE—" I had ae Horse and I had nae mal»." 

WHEN first I came to Stewart Kyle, 

My mind it was nae steady, 
Where'er I gaed, where'er I rade 

A mistress still I had ay: 
But when I came roun' by Mauchline 

Not dreadin' any body, 
My heart was caught before I thought, 

And by a Mauchline lady. 



SONG. 
TUNE— " Galla Water." 

ALTHO' my bed were in yon muir, 
Amang the heather, in my plaidie, 

Yet happy, happy would I be 
Had I my dear Montgomerie's Peggy.— 

When o'er the hill beat surly storms, 
And winter nights were dark and rainy ; 

I'll seek some dell, and in my arms 
I'd shelter dear Montgomerie's Peggy. 

Were I a Baron proud and high, 
And horse and servants waiting ready, 



138 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Then a' 'twad gie o' joy to mc, 
The sharin't with Montgomerie's Peggy. 



SONG. 
O RAGING fortune's withering blast 

Has laid my leaf full low ! O 
raging fortune's withering blast 

Has laid my leaf full low ! O 
My stem was fair, my bud was green 

My blossom sweet did blow; O 
The dew fell fresh, the sun rose mild, 

And made my branches grow ; O 
But luckless fortune's northern storms 

Laid a' my blossom's low, O 
But lucldess fortune's northern storms 

Laid a' my blossom's low, O. 



PATRIOTIC— unfinished. 

HERE'S a health to them that's awa, 

Here's a health to them that's awa ; 

And wha winna wish guid luck to our cause, 

May never guid luck be their fa'. 

It's guid to be merry ar.d wise, 

It's guid to be honest and true, 

It's guid to support Caledonia's cause, 

And bide the buff and the blue. 

Here's a health to them that's awa, 

Here's a health to them that's awa ; 

Here's a health to Charlie,* the chief o' the clan, 

Altho' that his hand be but sma' 

May liberty meet wi' success! 

May prudence protect her frae evil !. 

May tyrants and tyranny time in the mist, 

And wander their way to the devil 1. 

Here's a health to them that's awa, 

Here's a health to them that's awa, 

Here's a health to Tammie.tthe Norland laddie, 

That lives at the lug o' the law ! 

Here's freedom to him that wad read, 

Here's freedom to him that wad write I 

There's nane ever fear'd that the truth should be 

heard, 
But they wham the truth wad indict. 

Here's a health to them that's awa, 

Here's a health to them that's awa, 

Here's Chieftain M'Leocl, a Chieftain worth gowd 

Tho' bred ama'ng mountains o' snaw I 



SONG 

THC PLOUGHMAN. 

A» I wk» a wand ring ae morning in spring, 
Ihsarda ycung Ploughman, sae sweetly to sing, 
*C Fox. tLcrd Ersltine. 



And as he was singin' thir words he did say, 
j There's nae life like the Ploughman in the month c 
sweet May — 

The lav'rock in the morning she'll rise frae her nest, 
And mount to the air wi' the dew on i/er breast, 
Andwi' the merry Ploughman she'll whistle and sing, 
And at night she'll return to her nest back again. 



SONG. 

HER flowing locks, the raven's wing, 
Adown her neck and bosom hing ; 

How sweet unto that breast to cling ; 
And round that neck entwine her ! 

Her lips are roses wat wi' dew, 
O , what a feast, her bonnie mou ! 

Her cheeks a mair celestial hue, 
A crimson still diviner. 



BALLAD 

To thee, lov'd Nith, thy gladsome plains, 
Where late wi' careless thought I rang'd, 

Though prest wi' care and sunk in wo, 
To thee I bring a heart unchang'd. 

I love thee, Nith, thy banks and braes, 
Tho' mem'ry there my bosom tear ; 

For there he rov'd that brake my heart, 
Yet to that heart, ah, still how dear ! 



SONG. 

THE winter it is past, and the simmer comes at la* 
And the small birds sin;* on every tree ; 

Now every thing is glad, while I am very sad, 
Since my true love is parted from me. 

The rose upon the brier by the waters running cleat , 
May have charms for the linnet or the bee ; 

Their little loves are blest, and their little hearts at 
rest, 
But my true love is parted from me. 



GUIDWIFC OF WAUCHOPE 
HOUSE. 

TO 
ROBERT BURNS. 



Februrary, 1787 



MY canty, witty, rhyming ploughman 
1 batllins doubt, it is ua true man, 



BURNS' POEMS. 



139 



That jre between the stilts were bred, 

Wi' ploughmen f chool'd, wi ploughmen fed. 

I doubt it sair, ye've drawn your knowledge 

Either frae grammar-school, or college, 

Guid troth, your saul and body baith 

War' belter fed, I'd pie my aith, 

Than theirs, who nr sour milk and parritch, 

An' bummil thro' the single caritch, 

Wha' ever heard the ploughman speak, 

Could tell gif Homer w*s a Greek J 

He'd flee as soon upon a cudgel, 

As get a single line of Virgil. 

An' then sae slee ye crack your jokes 

0' Willie t- — t and Charlie F — x, ' 

Our great men a' sae weel describe, 

An' how to gar the nation thrive, 

Ane maist wad swear ye dwalt amang them, 

An' as ye saw them, sae ye sang them. 

But be ye ploughman, be ye peer, 

Ye are a funny blade, I swear ; 

An' though the cauld 1 ill can bide, 

Yet twenty miles, an' mair, I'd ride, 

O'er moss, an' muir, an' never grumble, 

Tho' my auld yad should gie a stumble, 

To crack a winter night wi' thee, 

.And hear thy saiigs and sonnets slee. 

A guid saut herring, an' a cake, 

Wi' sic a chiel, a feast wad make, 

I'd rather scour your reaming.yill, 

Or eat o' cheese and bread my fill, 

Than wi' dull lairds on turtle dine, 

An' ferlie at their wit and wine. 

0' gif I kenn'd but whare ye baide, 

I'd send to you a marled plcid ; 

'Twad haud your shoulders warm and braw, 

An' douse at kirk, or market shaw. 

For south, as weel as north, my lad, 

A' honest Scotchmen lo'e the maud, 

Right wae that we're sae far frae ither ; 

Yet proud I am to ca' ye brither. 

• Your most obed't. 



THE ANSWER. 

Gwdwife. 

I MIND it weel, in earle date, 

When I was beardless young, and blate, 

An' first could thresh the barn , 
Or haud a yokin at the pleugh, 
An' tho' for foughten sair eneugh, 

Yet unco proud to learn ; 
When first amang the yellow corn 

A man I reckon'd was, 
And wi' the lave ilk merry morn 
Could rank my rig and lass, 
Still shearing, and clearing 

The tither stooked raw, 

Wi' ciaivers, an' haivers, 

Wearing the day awa.« 



E'en then a wish, (I mind its power,) 
A wish that to my latest hour 

Shall strongly neave my breast; 
That 1 for poor auld Scotland's sake, 
Some uaefu' plan, or book could make, 

Or sing a sang at least. 
The rough bur thistle, spreading wide 

Among the bearded bear, 
I turn'd my- weeding heuk aside, 
An' spar'd the symbol dear j 
No nation, no station, 

My envy e'er could raise, 
A Scot still, but blot still, 
I knew nae higher praise. 

B'i». otill the elements o' sang 

In formless jumble, right an' wtang, 

Wild floated in my brain ; 
Till on that har'st I said before, 
My partuer in the merry core, 

She rous'd the forming strain. 
I see her yet, the sonsie quean, 

That lighted up her jingle, 
Her witching smile, her pauky e'en 
That gar*, my heart-strings tingle, 
I fired, inspired, 

At ev'ry kindling keek, 

But bashing, and dashing, 

I feared ay to speak. 

Hale to the set, each guid chiel says, 
Wi' merry dance in winter days, 

An' we to share in common : 
The gust o' joy, the balm o' wo, 
The saul o' life, the heav'n below, 

Is rapture-giving woman. 
Ye surly sumphs, who hate the name 

Be mindfu' o' your mither ; 
She, honest woman, may think shame 
That ye're connected with her. 
Ye're wae. ..en, ye're nae men, 
That slight the lovely dears ; 
The shame ye, disclaim ye, 
Ilk honest birkie swears. 
For you, na bred to barn and byre, 
Wha sweetly tune the Scottish lyre, 

Thanks to you for your line. 
The marled plaid ye kindly spare, 
By me should gratefully be ware ; 

'Twad please me to the Nine. 
I'd be mair vauntie o' my hap, 
Douse hingin o'er my curple, 
Than ony ermine ever lap, 
Or proud imperial purple. 
Fareweellhen, lang hale then, 

An' plenty be your fa ; 
My losses and crosses 
Ne'er at your hallan ca'. 

ROBERT BURNS. 
March, 1787. 

SONG. 
TUNE— " The tither morn, at I ^*lorn. M 

YON wand'ringrill, that marks thehiU 
And glances o'er the brae, Sir • 



140 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Slides by a bower where mony a flower, 
Shades fragrance ou Ihe day, Sir. 

There Damon lay, with Sylvia gay : 
To love they thought nae crime, Sir ; 

The wild birds sang, the echoes rang, 
While Damon's heartbeat time, Sir. 



SONG. 

AS I cam in by our gate-end, 

As day was waxen weary ; 
O wha cam tripping down the street, 

But bonnie Peg, my dearie. 

Her air sae sweet, and shape complete, 
Wi' nae proportion wanting ; 

The queen of love, did never move, 
Wi' motion mair enchanting. 

Wi' linked hands, we took the sands, 

Adown yon winding river, 
And, Oh I that hour, an' broomy bower, 

Can I forget it ever ? 



POLLY STEWART. 
TUNE—" Ye're welcome Charlie Stewart. 

O LOVELY Polly Stewart, 

O charming Polly Stewart, 
There's ne'er a flower that blooms in May, 

That's half so fair as thou art. 

The flower it blaws, it fades, it fa's, 

And art can ne'er renew ii ; 
But worth and truth eternal youth, 

Will gie to Polly Stewart. 

May he, whase arms shall fauld thy charms, 

Possess a leal and true heart ; 
To him be given to ken the heaven 

He grasps in Polly Stewart ! 
O lovely, Sfc. 



THERE WAS A BONNIE LASS. 

THERE was a bonnie lass, and a bonnie, bonnie lass, 

And she lo'ed her bonnie laddie dear ; 
Till war's loud alarms tore her laddie frae her arms, 

Wi' monv a sigh and a tear. 
Over sea, over snore, where the cannons loudly roar, 

He still was a stranger to fear ; 
And nocht could him quell, or his bosom assail, 

Buv the bonnie lass he lo'ed sae dear. 



TILBIE DUNBAR. 

TUNE—" Johnny M'Gill." 

O WILT thou go wi' me, sweet Tibbie Dunbar; 
O wilt thou go wi' me, sweet Tibbie Dunbar ; 



Wilt thou ride on a horse, or be drawn in a eu 
Or walk by my side, O sweet Tiblie Dunbar? 
I carena thy daddie, his lands and his money, 
I carena thy kin, sae high and sae lordly : 
But say thou wilt hae me for better for waur, 
And come in thy coatie, sweet Tibbie Dunbar. 



ROBIN SHURE IN HAIRST. 

ROBIN shure in hairst, 

I shure wi' him, 
Fient a heuk had I, 

Yet I stack by him. 

I gaed up toDunse, 

To warp a wab o' plaiden, 
At his daddie's yett, 

Wha met me but Robin. 

Wa3 na Robin bauld, 

Tho' I was a cotter, 
Play'd me sic a trick 

And me the eller'sdochter? 
Robin shure, Sfc. 

Robin promis'd me 

A' my winter vittle ; 
Fient haet he had but three 

Goose feathers and a whittle. 
Robinshure, Sfc. 



MY LADY'S GOWN THERE'S GAIRS UPON"! 

MY lady's gown there's gairsupon't, 
And gowden flowers sae rare upon't ; 
But Jenny's jimps and jirkinet, 
My lord thinks muckle mair upon't. 

My lord a hunting he is gane, 
But hounds or hawks wi' him are nan?, 
By Colin's cottage lies his game, 
If Colin's Jenny be at hame. 
My lady's gown, &.C. 

My lady's white, my lady's red, 
And kith and kin o' G'assillis' blude, 
But her ten-pund kinds o' tocher guid, 
Were a' the charms his lordship lo'ed 
My lady's goirn, !fc. 

Out o'er yon moor, out o'er yon moai, 
Whare gor-cocks thro' the heather pass, 
There wons auld Colin's bonnie lass, 
A lily in a wilderness. 
My lady's gown, fyc. 

Sae sweetly move hergenty limbs, 
Like music notes o' lover's hymns : 
The diamond dew in her een sae blue, 
Where laughing love sae wanton swimt . 
My lady's gown, tfc. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



14J 



My lady 's dink, my lady's drest, 
The flower and fancy o' the west ; 
But the lassie that a man lo'es best, 
O that's the lass to make him blest. 
My lady's gown, SfC. 



WEE WILLIE GRAY. 



WEE Willie Gray, and his leather wallet ; 
Peel a willow-wand to be him boots and jacket : 
The rose upon the brier will be him trouse and doublet, 
The rose upon the brier will be him trouse and doublet. 

Wee Willie Gray, and his leather wallet ; 
Twice a lily flower will be in him sark and cravat: 
Feathers ot a flee wad fea'her up his bonnet, 
Feathers of a flee wad feather up his bonnet. 



THE NORTHERN LASS. 
THO' cruel fate should bid us part, 

Far as the pole and line ; 
Her dear idea round my heart 

Should tenderly entwine. 
Tho' mountains rise, and deserts howl, 

And oceans roar between ; 
Yet dearer than my deathless soul, 

I still would love my Jean. 



COULD AUGHT OF SONG. 

COULD aught of songdeclare my pains, 

Could artful numbers move thee, 
Tho muse should tell, in labour'd strains, 

O Mary, 'now I love thee. 
They who but feign a wounded heart, 

May teach the lyre to languish ; 
But wha*. avails the pride of art, 

When wastes the soul with anguish? 

Then let the sudden bursting sigh 
The heart-felt pang discover ; 

And in the keen, yet tender eye, 
O read th' imploring lover. 

For well I know thy gentle mind 
Disdain's art's gay disguising ; 

Beyond what fancy e'er refin'd, 
The voice of nature prizing. 



O GUID ALE COMES. 

GUID -ale comes, and guid ale goes, 
Ouid ale gars me sell my hose, 

Sell my hose, and pawn myshoon, 
Guid ale keeps my heart aboon. 

1 had sax ovvsen in a pleugh, 
They drew a' weel enough, 

I sell'd them a' just ane by ane ; 
Guid ale keeps my heart aboon. 



Guid ale hands me bare and busy, 
Gars me moop wi' the servant hizzie, 
Stand i' the stool when I hae done, 
Guid ale keeps my heart aboon. 
O guid ale comes, and guid ale goes, 
Guid ale gar3 me sell my hose, 
Sell my hose, and pawn my shoon ; 
Guid ale keeps my heart aboon. 



O LEAVE NOVELS. 

O LEAVE novels, ye Mauchline belles, 

Ye're safer at your spinning-wheel ; 
Such witching books, are baited hooks 

For rakish rooks, like Rob Mossgiel. 
Your fine Tom Jones and Grandisons, 

They make your youthful fancies reel, 
They heat your brains, and fire your veins, 

And then you're prey for Rob Mossgiei. 

Beware a tongue that's smoothly hung : 

A heart that warmly seems to feel ; 
That feeling heart but acts a part, 

'Tis rakish art in Rob Mossgiel. 
The frank address, the soft caress, 

Are worse than poisoned darts of steel, 
The frank address, and politesse, 

Are all finesse in Rob Mossgiel. 



o ay :.r> 



&L. oi'.il EAKd MS. 



O AY my wife she dang me, 
An' aft rny wife she baug'd me ; 
If ye gie a woman a' her will, 
Good faith she'll soon o'ergang ye. 

■Jn ,'j^^; and rest my mind was bent, 

And fool I was [ marry'd ; 
But never honest man's intent 

As cursedly miscarry'd. 

Some sairie comfort still at last, 
When a' their days are done, man, 

My pains o' hell on earth is past, 
I'm sure o' bliss aboon, man. 
Oay my wife, Sfc. 



THE DEUKS DANG O'ER MY DADDIE. 

THE bairns gat out wi' an unco shout, 

The deuksdaog o'er my daddie, O 1 
The fienl ma care, quo' the feirie auld wife, 

He was but a paidlin body, ., > 
He paidlea out, and he paidlesin, 

An' he paidles hue anil earl'ip, O ; 
This seven laugyears I hae lain by his -ide, 

An' he. is but a fusionless carlie, 0. 

O had your tongue, rny feirie auld wifs 
O had your tongue now, Nansie, O : 



142 



BURNS' POEMS. 



I've seen the day, and sae nao ye, 
Ye wadna been sae donsie, O : 

I've seen the day ye butter'd my brose, 
And cuddl'dme late and earlie, O ; 

But downa do's come o'er me now, 
And, Oil, I find it sairly, 1 



DELIA. 



FAIR the face of orient day, 
Fair the tints of op'ning rose ; 
But fairer still my Delia dawns, 
More lovely far her beauty blows. 

Sweet the lark's wild-warbled lay, 
Sweet the tinkling rill to hear ; 
But, Delia, more delightlul still, 
Steal thine accents on my ear. 

The flowerenamour'd busy bee 
The rosy banquet loves to sip ; 
Sweet the streamlet's limpid lapse 
To the sun-brown'd Arab's lip ; 

But, Delia, on thy balmy lips 

Let me, no vagrant insect, rove ! 

O let me steal one liquid kiss, 

For Oh 1 my soul is parch'd with love ! 



ON A BANK OF FLOWERS. 

ON a bank of flowers one summer's day, 

For summer lightly dress'd, 
The youthful, blooming Nelly lay, 

With love and sleep oppress 'd ; 
When Willy, wand'ringthro' the wood, 

Who for her favour oft had su'd, 
He gaz'd, he wish'd, he fear'd, he blush'd, 

And trembled where he stood. 

Her closed eyes, like weapons sheath'd, 

Were seal'd in soft repose, 
Her lips still as they fragrant breath'd 

It richer dy'd the rose. 
The springing lilies sweetly prcss'd, 

Wild wanton kiss'd her rival breast ; 
He gaz'd, he wish'd, he fear'd, he blush'd, 

His bosom ill at rest. 

Hei' robes, light waving in the breeze, 

Her tender limbs embrace, 
Her lovely form, her native ease, 

All harmony and grace. 
Tumultuous tides his pulses roll, 

A flattering ardent kiss he stole : 
He gaz'd, he wish'd. he fear'd, he blush'd, 

And sigh'd his very soul. 

As flies the partridge from the brake, 
On fear inspired wings ; 



So Nelly startling, half *wak«, 

Away affrighted springs 
But Willy fellow'd as he should, 

He overtook her in the wood, 
He vow'd, he pray'd, lie found the maid 

Forgiving all and good. 



EVAN BANKS. 

SLOW spreads the gloom my soul desire*, 

The sun from India's shore retires ; 

To Evan banks with temperate ray 

Home of my youth, it leads the day. 

Oh ! banks to me for ever dear ! 

Oh ! stream whose murmurs still I hear ! 

All, all my hopes of bliss reside, 

Where Evan mingles with the Clyde. 

And she, in simple beauty drest, 
Whose image lives within my breast , 
Who trembling heard my parting sigh, 
And long pursued me with her eye ! 
Does she witii heart unchang'd as mine, 
Oft in thy vocal bowers recline ? 
Or where yon glut o'erhangs the tide, 
Muse while the Evan seeks the Clyde. 

Ye lofty banks that Evan bound! 
Ye lavish woods thai wave around, 
And o'er the stream your shadows throw 
Which sweetly winds so far below ; 
What secret charm to mem'ry brings, 
All that on Evan's border springs ? 
Sweet banks ! ye bloom by Mary's side : 
Blest stream ! she views thee haste to Clyde. 

Can all the wealth of India's coast 
Atone for years in absence lost? 
Return, ye moments of delight, 
With richer treasure bless my sight! 
Swift from this desert let me part, 
And fly to meet a kindred heart ! 
Nor more may aught my steps divide 
From tint dear stream which flows to Clyd» 



THE FIVE CARLINS. 

AN ELECTION BALLAD. 
TUNE-" Chevy Chace." 

THERE were five Carlins in the south. 

They fell upon a scheme, 
To send a lad to Lon'on town 

To bring us tidings hame. 

Not only bring us tidings hame, 

But dc our errands there, 
And aibling gowd and honour baith. 

Might be that laddie's share, 



BURNS' POEMS. 



W 



There was Maggie by the banks o' Nith,* 

A dame wi' pride enough ; 
And Majorie o' the monie Loch,t 

A Carlinauld an' teugh. 

And blinkin Bess o' Annandale,| 

That dwells near Solwayside, 
And whisky Tean that took her gill§ 

In Galloway so wide. 

And auld black Joan frae Creighton peel, 

O' gipsy kith an' kin, 
Five weightier Carlins were na *bund 

The south kintra within. 

To send a lad to Lon'on town 

They met upon a day, 
And monie a Knight and monie a Laird 

That errand fain would gae. 

! monie a Knight and monie a Laird 

This errand fain would gae ; 
But nae ane could their fancy please, 

O ! ne'er a ane but t wae. 

The first ane was a belted Knight, 

Bred o' a border band, 
An' he wad gae to Lon'on town, 

Alight nae man him withstand. 

And he wad do their errands weel, 

And meikle he wad say, 
And'.Jca ane at Lon'on court 

Wad bid to hiinguid day. 

Then niest came in a sodger youth 

And spak wi' modest grace, 
An' he wad gae to Lon'on town, 

If Bae their pleasure was. 

He wad na hecht them courtly gift, 

Nor meikle speech pretend ; 
But he wad hecht an honest heart 

Wad ne'er desert his friend. 

Nov/ whom to choose and whom refuse ; 

To strife thae Carlins fell ; 
For some had gentle folk to please, 

And some wad please themsel. 

Then out spak mim-mou'd Meg o' Nith, 

An' she spak out wi' pride, 
An' she wad send the sodger youth 

Whatever might betide. 

For the auld guidman o' Lon'on court 

She did not care a pin, 
But she wad send the sodger youth 

To greet his eldest son. 

Then up sprang Bess o' Annandale : 

A deadly aith she's ta'en, 
That she wad vote the border Knight, 

Tho' she should vote her lane. 

'Dumfries. tLochmaben. J Annan, 

(Kirk udbright. Sanqnhar. 



For far off fowls hae feathers fair, 

An' fools o' change are fain : 
But I hae tried the border Knight, 

I'll try him yet again. 

Says auld black loan frae Creighton peel, 

A Carlin stout and grim, 
The auld guidman or young guidman : 

For me may sink or swim I 

For fools may prate o' right and wrang, 
While knaves laugh thein to scorn ; 

But the Sodger's friends hae blawn the best 
Sae he shall bear the horn. 

Then whisky Jean spak o'er her drink, 

Ye weel ken kimmers a', 
The auld guidman o' Lon'on court, 

His back's been at the wa'. 

And monie a friend that kiss'd his caup, 

Is now a frammit wight ; 
But it'3 ne'er sae wi' whisky Jean, 

We'll send the border Knight. 

Then slow rose Majorie o' the Lochs, 

And wrinkled was her brow ; 
Her ancient weed was russet gray 

Her auld Scots heart was true. 

There's some great folks set light by me, 

I set as light by them ; 
But I will send to Lon'on town 

Wha I lo'e best at hame. 

So how this weighty plea will end, 

Nae mortal wight can tell ; 
G-d grant the King and ilka man 

May look weel tc himsel. 



THE LASS THAT MADE THE BED TO ME, 

WHEN January winds were blawing cauld, 

As to the north I bent my way, 
The mirksome night did me enfauld, 

I kenn'd na whare to lodge till day ; 
By my guid luck a lass I met, 

Just in the middle of my care, 
And kindly she did me invite, 

To walk into a chamber fair. 

I bow'd fu' low unto this maid, 

And thank'd her for her courtesie ; 
I bow'd fu'low unto this maid, 

And bade her make abed for me : 
She made the bed both large and wide, 

Wi' twa white hands she spread it down ; 
She put the cup toher rosy lips, 

And drank, " Young man, now sleep ye sound." 

She snatch'd the candle in her hand, 
And frae my chamber went wi' speed : 

But I call'd her quickly back again, 
To lay some mair below my head : 



144 



BURNS' POEMS. 



A cod she laid below my head, 
And served me with due respect ; 

*dq to salute her with a kiss, 
1 put my arms about her neck. 

" Hand aff your hands, young man," says she, 
Ki And dinnasae uncivil be: 
■ "Tpif ye hae ony love for me, 

wrang na my virginity 1" 

Her hair was like the links o' gowd, 

Her teeth were like the ivory, 
Her cheeks like lilies dipt in wine, 

The lass that made the bed for me. 

Her bosom was the driven snaw, 

Twadrifted heaps sae fair tofec ; 
Herlimos the polish'd marble stone, 

The lass that made the bed to me. 
I kiss'd her owre and owre again, 

And ay she wistna what to say ; 
I laid her 'tween me and the wa' ; 

The lassie thought na lang till day 

Upon the morrow, when we raise, 

1 thank'd her for her courtesie ; 
But ay she blush 'd, and ay she sigh'd, 

And said, "Alas! ye've'rnin'd me." 
I clasp'd her waist, and kfos.'d her syne, 

While the tear stood twinkling in her e'e, 
I said, "my lassie, dinna cry, 

For ye ay shall mak the bed to me." 

She took her mither's Holland sheets, • 

And made them a' in sarks to me ; 
Blythe and merry may she be, 

The lass that made the bed to me. 
The bonnie lass made the bed to me, 

The braw lass made the bed to me ; 
IM ne'er forget, till the day that I die, 

The lass that made the bed to me. 



THE KIRK'S ALARM.* . 

A SATIRE. 
ORTHODOX, Orthodox, wha believe in John tfnox, 

Ltl me sound an alarm to your conscience ; 
There's a heretic blast, has been blawn in the wast, 

Tl.at what is no sense must be nonsense. 

Dr. Mac,t Dr. Mac, you should stretch on a rack, 

To strike evil doers wi' terror ; 
To join faith and sense upon any pretence, 

Is heretic, damnable error. 

Town of Ayr, town of Ayr, it was mad I declare, 

To meddle wi' mischief a-brewing ; 
Provost John is still deaf to the church's relief, 

And orator Bob} is it's ruin. 

DYymp'.e mild,§ D'ryrnple mild, tho' your heart's like 
a child, 
And your life like the new driven snaw, 

• This Poem was written a short time after the pub- 
lication of Dr. M'UiU'a Essay. 

tCr. JVTGill. t R 1 A— k— n. §Mr.D— m-le 



Ye that winnasave ye.auld Satan must havs y«, 
For preaching that three's ane and twa. 

Rumble John,* Rumble John, mount the steps wl' a 

groan, 
Cry the book is wi' heresy cramm'd ; 
Then lug out your ladle, deal brimstone like addle, 
And roar every note of the damn'd. 

Simper James,t Simper James, leave the fair Killie 
dames, 

There's a holier place in your view ; 
I'll lay on your head, that the pack ye'll soon lead 

For puppies like you there's but few 

Singet Sawney, J Singet Sawney, are ye herding the 
penny, 

Unconscious what evils await? 
Wi' a jump, yell, and howl, alarm every soul, 

For the foul thief is just at your gate. 

Daddy Auld,§ Daddy Auld, there - satod in the faujd, 

A tod meikle waur than the Clerk ; 
Tho' ye can do little skaith, ye'll be in at the death, 

And gif ye canna bite, ye may bark. 

Da-vie Bluster ,U Davie Bluster, if for a saint ye do 
I muster, 
The corps islno nice of recruits : 
Yet to worth let's be just, royal blood ye might boast, 
-If the ass was life king of the brutes. 

Jamie Groose,** Jamie Groo3e, ye hae made but town 
room, 

In hunting the wicked Lieutenant 
But the Doctor's your mark, for the L — d'shaly ark, 

He has cooper'd and caw'd a wrang pin in't. 

Poet Wilhe.tt Poet Willie, sie the Doctor a volley, 
Wi' your liberty's chain an.! your wit ; 

O'er Pegasus's side ye ne'er laid a stride 
Ye but smelt, man, the place where he s — t. 

Andro Gouk,^ Andro Gouk, ye may slander the book, 
And the book nane the waur let me tell ye ! 

Ye are rich, and look big, but lay by hat and wig, 
And ye'll hae a call's head o' sma' value 

Barr Steenie,§§ Barr Steenie, what mean ye? what 
mean ye ? 
If ye'll meddle nae mair wi' the matter, 
Ye may hae some pretence to havins and sense, 

Wi' the people wha ken ye nae better. 

Irvine Side,*T11 Irvine Side, wi' your turkey-cock pride, 

Of manhood but si.ia' is your share ; 
Ye've the figure, 'tis true, even your faes will allow, 

And your friends they dare grant you nae mair. 

* Mr. R-ss-K. t Mr. M'K— y. 

J Mr M y. ^ § Mr. A— d. 

TlMr.G— tofO-1— e. •' Mr. Y— gof C— n-k. 
■tjMr. P— b— s of A— r. Jj Dr. A. M— 11 

§5 Mr. S n Y g of B r 

Ttn Mr. S h of G n. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



145 



rvluirland Jock,* Muirland Jock, when the L— d makes . W 
a rock 

To crush common sense for her sins, 
If ill manners were wit, there's no mortal so fit 

To confound the poor Doctor at ance. 



HoIyWill.t Holy "Will, there was wit i' your skull. 

When ye pilfer'd the alms o' the poor ; 
The timmer is scant, when ye're ta'en for a sant, 

Wha should swing in a rope for an hour. 

Calvin's sons, Calvin's sons, seize your sp'ritual guns, 

Ammunition you never can need ; 
Your hearts are the stuff, will be powther enough, 

And your skulls are storehouses o' lead. 

Poet Burns, Poet Burns, wi' your priest-skelping 
turns, 

Why desert ye your auld native shire ? 
Your muse is a gipsie, e'en tho' she were tipsie, 

She cou'd ca' us nae waur than we are. 



THE TWA HERDS. 

O a' ye pious godly flocks, 
Well fed on pastures orthodox, 
Wha now will keep you frae the fox, 

Or worrying tykes, 
Or wha will tent the waifs and crocks, 

About the dykes 1 

The twa best herds in a' the wast, 
That e'er gae gospel horn a blast, 
These five and twenty summers past, 

O! doolto tell, 
Hae had a bitter black out-cast, 

Atween themsel. 

O, M y, man, and wordy R II, 

How could you raise so vile a bustle, 
Ye'll see how new-light herds will whistle 

And think it fine ! 
The Lord's cause ne'er gat sic a twistle, 

Siu' I hae min'. 

O, Sirs 1 wha e'er wad hae expeckit, 
Your duty ye wad sae negleckit, 
Ye wha were ne'er by lairds respeckit, 

To wear the plaid, 
But by the brutes themselves eleckit, 

To be their guide. 

What flock w' M y's flock could rank, 

Sae hale and hearty every shank, 
Nae poison'd aoor Arminian stank, 

He let them taste, 
Frae Calvii. swell, ay clear they drank, 
O sic a feast ! 
The thummart wil'-cat, brock and tod, 
Weel kenn'd his voice thro' a' the wood, 
He smell'd their ilka hole and road, 

Baith out and in, 
And weel he lik'd to shed their blind, 

And sell their skin. 
'Mr. 



herd like R II toll'd his tale ? 

was heard thro' rnuir and dale, 



lie kenn'd the Lord's sheep ilka'' tail, 

O 'er a' the height, 

And saw gin they were sick or hale, 

At the first sight. 

He fine a mangy sheep could scrub, 
Or nobly fling the gospel club, 
And new-fight herds could nicely drub, 

Or pay their skin, 
Couldshake them o'er the burning dub ; 

Or heave them in. 

Sic twa— ! do I live to see't— 
Sic famous twa should disagreet, 
An' names, like villain hypocrite, 

Ilk ither gi'en, 
While new-light herds wi' laughin spite, 

Say neither's lien' I 

A' ye wha tent the gospel fauld, 

There's D n, deep, and P s, shaul, 

But. chiefly thou, apost.'e A — D, 

We trust in thee, 
That thou wilt work them, hot and cauld, 

Till they agree. 

Consider, Sirs, how we're beset, 
There's scarce a new herd that we get, 
But comes frae 'mang that cursed set, 

I winna name, 
I hope frae heav'n to see them yet 

In fiery flame. 



D e has been lang oi 

M' 11 has wrought us r 

And that curs'd rascal ca' 



fee, 

jikle wae, 



t An Elder in M- 



M' e. 

And baith the S 

That aft hae made us black «tnd blue, 

Wi' vengefu' paws. 

Auld W w lang has hatch'd mischief, 

We thought ay death wad bring relief, 
Bat he has gotten, to our grief, 

Ane to succeed htm, 
A chiel wha'll soundly buff our beef; 

I meikle dread him. 

And many a ane that I could tell, 
Wha fain would openly rebel, 
Porby turn-coats amang onrsel, 

There S h for ane, 

I doubt he's but agray nick quill, 

And that ye'll fin'. 

O 1 a' ye flocks, o'er a' the hills, 
By mosses, meadows, moors and fells, 
Come join your counsel and your skills, 

To cowe the lairds, 
And get the brutes the power themselves, 

To choose their herd*. 

Then Orthodoxy yet may prance, 
And Learning in a woody dance, 
And that fell cur ca'd Common Sense, 

That bites sae wilr, 



46 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Be baniah'd o'er the sea to France ; 
Let him bark there. 

Then Shaw's and D'rymple's eloquence, 

M' ll's close nervous excellence, 

M'Q, 's pathetic Manly sense, 

Andguid M' h 

Wi' S th, wha thro' the heart can glance, 

May a' pack aff. 



EPISTLE FROM A TAYLOR 

TO 

ROBERT BURNS. 

WHAT waefu' news is this I hear, 
Frae greeting I can scarce forbear, 
Folks tell me, ye're gawn aft' this year, • 

Oute'r the sea, 
And lasses wham ye lo'e. sae dear 

Will greet for thee 

Weei wad I like war ye to stay, 
But, Robin, since ye will away, 
I hue : word yet mair to say, 

And maybe twa ; 
May he protect i,o night an' day, 

That made us a'. 

Whaur thou art gaun, keep mind frae me, 
Seek him to bear thee companie, 
And, Robin, whan ye come to die, 

Ye'll won aboon, 
An' live at peace an' unity 

Ayont the moon. 

;3ome tell me, Rab, ye dinna fear 
To get a wean, an' curse an' swear, 
I'm unco wae, my lad, to hear 

O' sic a trade, 
Cou'd I persuade ye to forbear, 

I wad be glad. 

F-i' wed yc ken ye'll gang to hell, 
Gin ye persist in doing ill — 
Wacs me : ye're hurlin down the hill 

Withouten dread, 
An' ye'il get leave to swear your fill 

After ye're dead. 

There walth o' women ye'll get near, 
But gettin weans ye will forbear. 
Ye'll never say, my bonnie dear 

Corac,gie's a kiss — 
Nae kissing there— ye'll grin an' sneer, . 

An' ither hiss. 

O Rab . iky by thy foolish tricks, 
An' steer nae mair the female sex ; 
Or6ome day ye'll come through the pricks, 

An' that ye'll see ; 
Ye'll find hard living wi' Auld Nicks ; 

I'm wae for thee. 



But what's this comes wi' sic aknefl, 
Amaist as loud as ony bell? 
While it does mak my conscience tell 

Me what is true, 
I'm butaragget cowtmysel, 

Ovvre sib to you 

We're owre like those wha think it fit, 
To stuff their noddles fu' o' wit, 
An' yet content in darkness sit, 

• Wha shun the light, 
fo let them see down to the pit, 

That lang, dark night, 

But farewell, Rab, I maun awa', 
May he that made us keep us a', 
For that would be a dreadfu' fa' 

And hurt us sair, 
Lad, ye wad never mend ava, 

Sae, Rab, tak care. 



THE ANSWER. 

WHAT ails ye now, ye lousy b h, 

To thresh my back at sic a pitch ? 
Losh man 1 hac mercy wi' your natch, 

Your bodkin's bauld, 
I did na suffer ha'f sae much 

FraDaddie Auld. 

What tho' at times when 1 grow crouse 
I gie their wames a random pouse, 
Is that enough for you to souse 

Your servant sae ! 
Gae mind your seam, ye prick the louse, 
An^ jag the Pae. 

King David o' poetic brief, 
Wrought 'mang the lasses sic mischief 
As fill'd his after life wi' grief 

An' bloody rants, 
An' yet he's rank'd among the chief 

O' lang syne saunts. 

And may be, Tarn, for a' my cants, 
My wicked rhymes, an' drunken rants, 
I'll gie auld cloven Clouty's haunts, 

An unco slip yet, 
An' snugly sit amang the saunts 

At Davie's hip yet. 

But fegs, the Session says I maun 
Gae fa' upo' anithur plan, 
Than garran lassies cowp the cran 

Clean heel3 owre body 
And sairly thole their mither's ban, 

Afore the howdy. 

This leads me on, to tell for sport, 
How I did with the Session sort— 
Auld Clinkum at the Inner port 

Cry'd three times, " Robl» 
Come hither, lad, an answer for't, 

Ye're blane.'d for jobbin," 



BURNS' POEMS. 



147 



Wi' pinch I put a Sunday's face on, 
An' snoov'd awa' before the Session — 
I made an open, fair confession, 

I scorn 'd to lie : 

An' syne Mess John, beyond expression. 

Fell foul o' nic. 

A fornicator lown he call'd me, 
An' said my fau't frae bliss expell'd me 5 
I own'd the tale ivastrue >ie tellM me, 

"But what the matter?' 
Uuo' I, " I fear unless ye geld me, 

I'll ne'er be better." 

" Geld you," quo' he, " and what for no ! 
If that your right hand, leg or toe, 
Should ever prove your sp'ritual foe, 

You shou'd remember 
To cut it aff, an' what for no 

Your dearest member?" 

" Na, na," quo' I, " I'm no for that, 
Gelding's nae better than 'tis ca't, 
I 'd rather suffer for my fau 't , 

A hearty flewit, 
As sair owre hip as ye can draw't > 

Tho' I should rue it. 

Or gin ye like to end the bother, 
To please us a', I've just ae ither, 
When nextwi' yon lass I forgather 

Whate'er betide it, 
I'll frankly gie her't a' thegither, 

An' let her guide it.' ' 

But, Sir, this pleas'd them warst ava, 
An' therefore, Tarn, when that I saw, 
I said, " Guid night," and cam awa', 

And left the Session ; 
I saw they were resolved a' 

On my oppression. 



LETTER TO JOHN GOUDIE, 

KILMARNOCK, 

ONT THF. PTTRT.TCATTON OP HIS ESSAYS. 

O GOUDIE! terror o' the Whigs, 
Dread o' blauk cuius ana reViena wigs, 
Soor Bigotry, on her last legs, 

Girnin looks back, 
Wishin the ten Egyptian plagues 

Wad seize you quick. 

Poor gapin, glowrin Superstition, 
Waes me ! she's in a sad condition ; 
Py, bring Black Jock, her state physician, 

To see her w— ter ; 
Alas ! there's ground 0' great suspicion 

She'll ne'er get better, 



Aultl Orthodoxy lang did grapple, 
But now she's got an uuco ripple, 
Haste, gie her name up i' the chapel, 

NJgh unto death ; 
See how she fetches at the thrapple, 

An' gasps for breath. 

Enthusiasm's past redemption, 
Gaen in a galloping consumption, 
Not a' the quacks wi' a' their gumption, 

Will ever mend her, 
Her feeble purse gies strong presumption, 

Death soon will end her 

'Tisyou and Taylor* are ih", chief, 
Wha are to blame for this mischief; 
But gin the L— d's ain folks gat leave, 

A toom tar barrel 
And twa red peats wad scud relief, 

An' end the quarrel. 



LETTER TO J S T T GL NC- 

AULD comrade dear and brither sinner 
How's a' the folk about Gl— nc— r ; 
How do you this Mae eastlin wind, 
That's like to blaw a body blind 2 
Forme my faculties are frozen, 
My dearest member nearly dozen'n s 
I've sent-you here by Johnie Simpson, 
Twa sage Philosophers to glimpse on ; 
Smith, wi' his sympathetic feeling, 
An' Reid, to common sense appca.ing, 
Philosophers have fought and wrangled, 
An' meikle Greek an' Latin mangled, 
Til! wi' their logic jargon tired, 
An 7 in the depths of science mir'd, 
To common sense they now appeal, 
What wives an' wabsters see an' feel ; 
But, hark ye, friend, I charge you strictly 
Peruse them an' return them quickly; 
For now I'm grown sae cursed douse, 
I pray an' ponder butt the house, 
My shins, my lane, I there sit roastin, 
Perusing Bunyan, Brown, and Boston J 
Till by an' by, if I haud on, 
I'll grunt a real Gospel groan : 
Already I begin to try it, 
To cast my een up like a pyet, 
When by a gun she tumbles o'er, 
■ Flutt'ring an' gasping in her gore ; 
Sae shortly _ V ou shall see me bright, 
A burning an' a shining light. 

My heart-warm love to »uid auld Glen, 
The ace an' wale of honettmen ; 
When bendingdown with auld gray hairs, 
Beneath the load of years and cares, 
May he who made him still support him. 
An' views beyond the grave comfort hins. 
His worthy fam'ly far and near, 
God bless them a' wi' grace and gear. 

* Dr. Taylor of Norwich. 



148 



BURNS' POEMS. 



ON THE DEATH OF 

SIR JAMES HUNTER BLAIR. 

THE lamp of day with ill-presaging glare, 
Dim, cloudy ,sunk beneath the western wave, 

Tii' inconstant blast howl'd thro' the darkening air, 
And hollow whistled in the rocky cave. 

Lone as I wander'd by each cliff and dell, 

Once the lov'd haunts of Scotia's royal train ;* 

Or mus'd where limpid streams, once hallow'd well,t 
Or mould'ring ruins mark the sacred fane.} 

Th' increasing blast roar'd round the beetling rocks, 
The clouds swift-wing'd flew o'er the starry sky, 

The groaning irees untimely shed their locks, 
And shooting meteors caught the startling eye. 

The paly moon rose in the livid east, 
And 'mongthe cliffs disclos'd a stately form, 

In weeds of wo that frantic beat her breast, 
And mix'd her wailings with the raving storm. 

Wild to my heart the filial pulses glow, 
'Twas Caledonia's trophied shield I view'd : 

Her form majestic droop'd in pensive wo, 
The lightning cf her eye in tears imbued. 

* The King'* Park, at Holyrood-house. 

t St. Anthony *i Well. } St. Anthony's Chapel. 



Revers'd that spear, redoubtable in War; 

Reclin'd that banner, erst in fields unfurl'd, 
That like a deathful meteor gleam'd afar, 

And brav'd the mighty monarchs of the world.— 

" My patriot son fills an untimely grave !" 
With accents wild and lifted arms she cried ; 

' Low lies the hand that oft was stretch'd to save, 
Low lies the heart that sweil'd with honest pridel 

" A weeping country joins a widow's tears, 
The helpless poor mix with the orphan's cry ; 

The drooping arts surround their patron's bier, 
And grateful science heaves the heartfelt 6igh.— 

" I saw my sons resume their ancient fire ; 

I saw fair Freedom's blossoms richly blow; 
But ah ! how hope is born but to expire ! 

Relentless fate has laid this guardian low. — 

" My patriot falls, but shall he lie unsung, 
While empty greatness saves a worthless name! 

No; every muse shall join her tunefultongue, 
And future ages hear his growing fame. 

" And I will join a mother's tender cares, 
Thro' future times to make his virtue last, 

That distant years may boast of other Blaira"— 
She said, and vanish'd with the sweeping blast. 



A CANTATA. 



RECITATIVO. 

WHEN lyart leaves bestrew the yird 
Or, wavir.glike thebauckie* bird, 

Bedim cauld Boreas' blast : 
When hailstaues drive wi' bitter skyte, 
a^iu ;nfant frosts begin to bitej 

In hoary cranreugh drest ; 
At night at e'en, a merry core 

O' randie gangrel bodies, 
In Poosie-Nar.sie's held the splore, 
To drink their ora duddies : 
Wi' quaffing and laughing, 

They ranted and they'sang ; 
Wi' jumping and thumping 
The vera girdle rang 



I'irst, niest the fire, in auld red rags, 
Aue sat, weelbrac'd wi' mealy bags, 

And knapsack a' in order ; 
His doxy lay within his arm, 
Wi' usquebae and blankets warm, 

She blinket on her sodger ; 
And aye he gies the tousie drab 

The ti.her skelpiu kiss, 
While she held up her greedy gab, 
Just like an a'mous dish ; 

Ilk smack still, did crack still, 

Just like a cadger's whup, 
Then staggering, and swaggering, 
He roar'd this ditty up— 



TUNE— " Soldier's Joy." 

I AM a son of Mars, who have been in many wars, 
And show my cuts and scars wherever I come ; 
This here was for a wench, and that other in a trench, 
When welcoming the French at the sound of the drum. 
Lal de dandle, fyc. 



My 'prenticeship I past where my leader breath'd his 

last, 
When the bloody die was cast on the heights of Abram; 
I serv'd out my trade when the gallant game was play 'd, 
And the Moro low was laid at the sound of the drum. 
Lai de daudle, fyc. 

The old Scottish name for the Bat. 



I lastly was with Curtis, among the floating aalt'ries, 
And there I left for witness an arm and a limb : 
Yet let my country need me, with Elliot to head me, 
I'd clatter on my stumps at the sound of the drum. 
Lai de daudle, !fc. 

And now, tlio' I must beg, with a wooden arm and leg, 
And many a tatter'd rag hanging over my bum, 
I'm as happy with my wallet, my bottle, and my callet 
As when I used in scarlet to follow the drum. 

Lai de daudle, t(c. 

What tho' the hoary locks, I must stand the windy 

shocks, 
Beneath the woods and rocks, oftentimes for a home ; 
When the tother bag I sell, and the tother bottle tell, 
I could meet a troop of h-11 at the sound of the drum. 

RECITATIVO. 

He ended ; and the kebars sheuk 

Aboon the chorus roar ; 
While frighted rattans backward leuk, 

And seek the benmostbore: 

A fairy fiddler frae the neuk, 

He skirl 'd out encore 1 
But up arose the martial's chuck, 

And laid the loud uproar. 

AIR. 

TUNE-" Soldier Laddie." 

I ONCE was a maid, tho' I cannot tell when, 
And still my delight is in proper young men ; 
Some one of a troop of dragoons was my daddie, 
No wonder I'm fond of a sodger laddie. 

Sing, Lai de lal, Sfc. 

The first of my lovers was a swaggering blade, 
To rattle the. thundering drum was his trade J 
His leg was so tight, and his cheek was so ruddy, 
Transported I was with my sodger laddie. 

Sing, Lal de lal, tfc. 

But the goodly old chaplain left him in the lurch, 
So the sword I forsook for the sake of the church, 
He ventur'd the soul, I risked the body, 
'Twas then I prov'd false to my s>dger laddie. 

Sing, Lal de lal, IfC. 



150 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Full soon I grew sick of the sanctified sol, 
The regiment at large for a husband 1 got ; 
From the gilded spontoon to the fife I was ready, 
I asked no more but a sodger laddie. 

Sing, Lal de lal, &e. 

But the peace it reduc'd me to beg in despair, 
Till I met my old boy at a Cunningham fair, 
Hia rags regimental they flutter'd sae gaudy, 
My heart it rejoiced at my sodger laddie. 

Sing, Lal de lal, fyc. 

And now I have liv'd — I know not how long, 

And still I can join in a cup or a song ; 

But whilst with both hands I can hold the glass steady, 

Here's to thee, my hero, my sodger laddie. 

Sing, Lal de lal, tec. 

RECITATIVO. 

Poor Merry Andrew, in the neuk, 

Sat guzzling wi' a tinkler hizzie ; 
They mind't na what the chorus took, 

Between themselves they were sae bizzy 
At length, wi' drink and courth.g dizzy, 

He stoiter'd up and made a face ; 
Then turn'd and laid a smack on Grizzy, 

Syne tun'd his pipes wi' grave grimace. 

AIR. 
TUNE—" Auld Sir Symon." 

SIR Wisdom's a fool when he's fou 

Sir Knave is a fool in a session ; 
He's there but a 'prentice I trow, 

But I am a fool by profession. 

My grannie she bought me a beuk, 

And I held awa to the school ; 
I fear I my talent misteuk ; 

But what will ye hae of a fool ? 

For drink I would venture my neck ; 

A hizzie's the half o' my craft ; 
But what could ye other expect 

Of one that's avowedly daft ? 

I ance was ty'd up like a stirk, 

For civilly swearing and quaffing ; 
I ance was abus'd i' the kirk, 

For towzling a lass i' my daffin. 

Poor Andrew that tumbles for sport, 

Let naebody name wi' a jeer ; 
There's ev'n I'm tauld i' the court, 

A tumbler ca'd the Premier. 

Observ'd ye, yon reverend lad 

Makes faces to tickle the mob ; 
He rails at our mountebank squad 

It 'g rivalship just i' the job. 

And now my conclusion I'll tell, 

For faith I'm confoundedly dry, 
The chiel that's a fool for liimsel, 

Gude L — d, is far dafter than I. 



RECITATIVO. 

Then niest outspak a raucle carlin, 
VVlia kent i'u' weel to deck the sterlin 
For monie a pursie she had hooked, 
And had in monie a well been ducket ; 
Her dove had been a Highland laddie, 
But weary fa' the waefu' woodie t 
Wi' sighs and sabs, she thus began 
To wail her braw John Higblandmas 

AIR. 

TUNE — " O an' ye were dead guidman. ' 

A ii'JMLAND lad my love was born, 
Tua i»avv tvn' laws he held in scorn ; 
But no stiil was faithfu' to his clan, 
My gaiiant, braw John Highlandman. 

CHORUS. 

Sing, hey, my braw John Highlandman 
Sing, ho, my braw John Highlandman ; 
There's not a lad in all the Ian' 
Has match for my John Highlandman. 

With his phil'.beg and tartan plaid, 
And guid claymore down by big side, 
The ladies' hearts he did trepan, 
My gallant, braw John Highlanuman. 

Sing, hey, l(e. 

We ranged a' from Tweed to Spey, 
And liv'd like lords and ladies gay ; 
For a Lallan face he feared nane, 
My gallant, braw John Highlandraan 

Sing, key, &c. 

They banish'd him beyond the sea, 
But ere the bud was on the tree, 
Adown my cheeks the pearls ran, 
Embracing my John Higlitandman. 

Sing, hey, Ifc. 

But oh ! they catch'd him at the last, 
And bound him in a dungeon fast ; 
My curse upon them every one, 
They've hang'd my braw John Highlandman 
Sing, hey, Ifc. 

And now a widow, 1 must mourn 
The pleasures that will ne'er return ; 
No comfort but a hearty can, 
When 1 think on John Highlandman. 

Sing, hey, Ifc. 

RECITATIVO 

A pigmy Scraper wi' his fiddle, 

Wha us'd at trysts and fairs todriddle, 

Her strappin limb and gaircy middle, 

(He reach'd nae higher,, 
Had hol't his heartie like a riddle, 

And blawn't on fire. 
Wi' hand on haunch, and upward e'e, 
He croon'd his gamut ane, twa, three 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Then, U, au Arioso key, 

The wee Apollo 
S«t aff, wi' Allegretto glee , 

His giga solo. 

AIR. 

TUNE— " Whistle o'er the lave o't 

LET me ryke up to (light-that tear, 
And go wi' me and be my dear, 
And then your every care and fear 
May whistle o'er the laveo't. 

CHORUS. 

I am a fiddler to my trade, 
And a' the tunes that e'er Iplay'd, 
The sweetest still to wife or maid, 
Was whistle o'er the lave o't. 

At kirns and weddings we'se be there 

And Oh ! sae nicely 's we will fare ; 

We'll bouse about, till Daddie Care 

Sings whistle o'er the lave o't. 

Iam,tfc. 

Sae merrily's the banes we'll pyke, 
And sun oursels about the dyke, 
And at our leisure when we like. 
We'll whistle o'er the lave o't. 

lam, !fc. 

But bless me wi' your heav'n o' charms, 
And while I kit: le hair on thairms, 
Hunger, cauld, and a' sic harms, 
May whistle o'er the lave o't. 

lam, tfc. 

RECITATIVO. 

Her charms had struck a sturdy Caird 

As weel as poor Gut-scraper ; 
He taks the fiddler by the beard, 

And draws a roosty rapier — 
He swoor, by a' was swearing worth, 

To spit him like a pliver, 
Unless he wad from that time forth 

Relinquish her for ever. 

Wi' ghastly e'e, poor tweedle dee 

Upon his hunkers bended, 
And pray'd for grace, wi' ruefu' face, 

And sae the quarrel ended. 
Buttho' his little heart did grieve 

When round the tinkler prest her, 
He feign'd to snirtle in his sleeve, 

When thus the Caird address'd her : 

AIR. 
TUNE—" Clout the Cauldron." 

MY bonny lass, I work in brass, 

A tinkler is my station ; 
I've travell'd round all Christian ground 

In this my occupation ; 



I've taen the gold, I've been enroll'd 

In many a noble squadron ; 
But vain they search'd, when off I march'd 

To go and clout the cauldron. 

I've taen the gold, (fc. 

Despise that shrimp, that w^ther'd imp, 

Wi' a' his noise and carpin, 
And tak a share wi' those that bear 

T he budget and the apron; 
And by that stoup, my faith and hou 

And by that dear Kilbadgie,* 
If e'er ye want, or meet wi' scant, 

May 1 ne'er wat my craigie. 

And by that stoup, tfe. 

RECITATIVO. 

The Caird prevail'd — th' unblushing fair 

In his embraces sunk, 
Partly wi' love o'ercome sae fair, 

And partly she was drunk. 
Sir Violiuo, with an air 

That show'd a man o' spunk, 
Wish'd unison bet ween the pair, 

And made the bottle clunk 

To their health that night. 

But hurchin Cupid shot a shaft, 

That play'da dame a shavie, 
The fiddler rak d her fore and aft, 

Behint the chicken cavie. 
Her lord, a wight o' Homer's craft, 

Tho' limping wi' the spavie, 
He hirpl'd up, and lap like daft, 

And shor'd them Dainty Davie. 

boot that night. 

He was a care-defying blade 

As ever Bacchus listed, 
Tho' fortune sair upon him laid, 

His heart she ever miss'd it. 
He had nae wish, but — to be glad, 

Nor want — but when he thirsted ; 
He hated nought hut — to be sad, 

And thus the Muse suggested 

His sang that night. 

AIR. 

TUNE—" For a' that, and a' that." 

I AM a bard of no regard, 

Wi' gentlefolks, and a' that : 
But Homer-like, the glowran pyke, 

Frae town to town I draw that 

CHORUS. 

For a' that, and a' that, 

And twice as meikle's a* that; 

I've had but ane; I've twa bekin', 
I've wije enough, for a' that. 

* A peculiar sort of Whiskey, so called ; a great fa- 
vourite with Poosie Nansie's clubs. 



152 



BURNS' POEMS. 



I nevev drank the Muses' tank, 

Castalia's burn, and a' that ; 
But there it streams, and richly reams, 

My Helicon I ca' that. 

For a' that, Sfc. 

Great love I bear to a' the fair, 
Their humble slave, and a' that ; 

But lordly will, 1 hold it still 
A mortal sin to thraw that. 

For a' that, IfC. 

In raptures sweet, this hour we meet, 

Wi' mutual love, and a' that ; 
But few- how lang the flic may stang, 

Let inclination law that. 

For a' that, tfc. 

Their tricks and craft hae put me daft, 
They've ta'en me in. and a' that ; 

But clear your decks, and " Here's the sex !" 
I like the jads for a' that. 

For a' that, and a' that , 
And twice as mtikle's a , that ; 

M$ dearest bluid, to do them guid, 
They're welcome till't, for a' that. 

RECITATIVO. 

So sung the bard— and Nansie's wa's 
Shook with a thunder of applause, 

Re-echo'd from each mouth ; 
They toom'd their pocks, and pawn'd their duds 
They scarcely left to co'er tin ir fuds, 

To quench their lowan drouth. 

Then owre again, the jovial throng, 

The poet did request, 
To lowsc his pack, and wale a sting, 
A ballad o' the best ; 
He, rising, rejoicing, 

Between his twa Deborahs, 
Looks round him, and found them 
Impatient for the chorus. 

AIR. 

TUNE— " Jolly Mortals', fill your Glasses.' 

SEE the smoking bowl before us, 

Mark our jovial ragged ring ; 
Round and round take up the chorus, 

And in raptures let us sing : 



CHORUS. 

A fig for those by law protected! 

Liberty's a glorious feast .' 
Courts for cowards were erected, 

Churches built to ylcase the prittt. 

What is title ? What is treasure? 

What is reputation's care? 
If we lead a life of pleasure, 

'T i no matter, how or where ! 

A Jig, H* 

With the ready trick and fable, 

Ron ml we wander all the day 
And at night, in barn or stable, 

Hug our doxies on the hay. 

A fig, tfC. 

Does the train attended carriage 
Thro' the country lighter rove ? 

Does the sober bed of marriage 
Witness brighter scenes of love? 

A Jig, be 

Life is all a variorum, 

We regard not how it goes ; 
Let them cant about decorum 

Who have characters to lose. 

AfeA-c 

Here's to budgets, bags, and wallets ! 

Here's to all the wandering train ! 
Here's our raged brats and callets ! 

One and all cry out, Amen! 

A fig, *« 



EXTEMPORE. 
April, ITS'?. 

WHY the deuce should I repine, 
And be an ill foreboder? 

I'm twenty-three, and five feet nine — 
I'li go and be a sudger. 

1 gat some gear wi' meikle care, 

1 held it weel thegither ; 
But now it's gane and something mail, 
I'll go and be a sodger. 



THE END. 



GLOSSARY. 



THE eh and ghbtxvt always the guttural sound. Thesoun-' of the Knglish diphthong oo, ti commonly spell- 
ed ou. The French u, a sound which often occurs in the Scottish language, is marked oo, ui. The a 
in genuine Scottish words, except when forming a diphthong, or fallowed by an e mule after a single conso- 
nant, sounds gen? .ally like the Uroad English a in wall. The Scottish diphthong oe, always, and ea, Tery 
often, sound like the French e masculine. The Scottish diphthong ey, sounds like the Latin ti. 



A', All. 

Aback, away, aloof. 
Abeigh, at a shy distance. 
Aboon, above, up. 
Ahread, abroad, in sight. 
Abreed, in breadth. 
Addle, putrid water, &c. 
Ae, one. 

Aff, off; Aff loof, unpremeditated. 
AJore, before. 
Aft, oft. 
Aft en, often. 

Agley, off the right line ; wrong. 
Aiblins, perhaps. 
Ain, own. 

Airle-vemty Airles, earnest-money 
Aim, iron. 
Ailh, an oath. 
Aits, oats. 
Aiver, an old horse. 
Aizle, a hot cinder, 
Alake, alas. 
Alane, alone. 
Akwart, awkward. 
Amaist, almost. 
Among, among. 
An 1 , and : if. 
Ance, once. 
Ane, one ; and. 
Anent, over against. 
Anit/ur, another. 
Ase, tukes. 

Aaklent, asquint ; aslant. 
Asteer, abroad ; stirring. 
Athart, athwart. 

Aught, possession ; as, in a' my aught, in all my 
possession 

[uld lane sy 

Vuld, old. 
Auldfarran, or auld /arrant, sagacious, cunning 

prudent. 
Ava, at all. 
Awa', a—ful. 

Awn, the beard of barley, oats, &c. 
Awnie, bearded. 
Ayont, beyond. 



B. 



Backlins, coming ; coming back, returning. 

Back, returning. 

Barf, did bid. 

Baide, endured, did stay. 

Baggie, the belly. 

Bainie, having large bones, stout. 

Bairn, a child. 

Bairnlime, a family of children, a brood. 

Bailh, both. 

Bin, to swear. 

Bane, bone. 

Bung, to beat ; to strive. 



Bardie, d'minutive of bard. 

! 

Bdimie, of, or like barm. 
Batch, a crew, a gang. 
B"iu, bote, 

, a cat. 

Id. 
Bawk, bank. 

Baws'ni, having a white stripe down the face. 
.fie, to let be; to give over; to cease. 
Bear, barley. 

Be'mtie, diminutive of beast. 
Beet, to add fuel to fire. 
Belli, bald. 
Belyee, by and by. 

Ben, into the speiice or pnrloiir; a spence. 
Benlomond, a noted mountain in Dumbartonshire. 
li< thaukit, grace after meat. 
Beuk, a bonk. 

Bicker, a kind of wooden dish ; a short race 
Bie, or bield, shelter. 
Bien, wealthy, plentiful. 
Big, to build'. 

Biggin, building ; a house. 
Bingit, built. 
BUI, a bull. 

Biltie, a brother ; a young fellow. 
Bing, a heap of grain, potatoes, <*C. 
Bint, birch. 

Birken-s/iaw, Birkenwood shaw, a small wood. 
Birkie, a cli.ver fellow. 

Birring, the noise ofpatridgee, &c. when they spring 
Bit, crisis, nick of time. 
liizz, a bustle, to 
Plastie, a shrivelled dwarf ; a term of contempt. 

Blate, bashful, sheepish. 

Blather, bla Ider. 

Bland, a flat piece of any thing ; to slap. 

Blaw, to blow, to ' 

Ble.erit, bleared sore with rheum. 
Win', bleared and blind. 

Bleezing, blazing. 

an Kile talking fellow. 

Bleih'rin, talking inly. 

Blink, a little while ; a smiling look ; to loook kind- 
ly ; to shine by fits. 

Blinker, a term of contempt. 

Blinkin, smirking. 

Blue-gown, one of those beggars who get annually, 
on the king's b.nU day, a blue, cloak or gown, 
with a badge. 

Bluid, b'oid. 

BluTilie, a sniveller, a stupid person. 

Bh/pc. a shred, a large piece. ■ 

Bo ', to vomit, to guah inlermittingly. 

Backed, gushed, vomited, 

Bodle, a small gold coin. 

Bogles, spirits, hobgoblins. 

Bonnie, or bonny, handsome, beautiful. 

Bonnock, a kind of thick cake of bread, a small Jan- 
neck, or loaf made of oalineai. 

Boord, a boar J. 

Boortree, the shrub elder ; planted much of old ha 
hedges of ba;-n yards, &c. 

Boost, behoved, must needs. 



G2 



154 



GLOSSARY. 



Bore, a hole in the wall. 

Botch, an angry tumour. 

Bousing, drinking. 

Bow-kail, cabbage. 

Bowt, bended, crooked. 

Biackens, fern. 

Brae, a declivity ; a precipice ; the slope of a bill. 

Braid, broad. 

Braindg't, reeled forward. 

Braik, a kind of harrow. 

Braindge, to run rashly forward. 

Bralc, broke, made insolvent. 

Branks, a kind of wooden curb for horses. 

Brash, a sudden illness. 

Brats, coarse clothes, rags, &c. 

Brattle, a short race ; hurry ; fury. 

Braw, fine, handsome. 

Brawly, or brawlie, very well ; finely ; heartily. 

Braxie, a morbid sheep. 

Breastie, diminutive of breast. 

Breastit, did spring up or forward. 

Breckan, fern. 

Breef, an invulnerable or irresistable spell. 

Breeks, breeches. 

Brent, smooth. 

Brewin, brewing. 

Brie, juice, liquid. 

Brig, a bridge. 

Brunstane, brimstone. 

Brisket, the breast, the bosom. 

Brilher, a In other. 

Brock, a badger. 

Brogue, a hum ; a trick. 

Broo, broth ; liquid ; water. 

Broose, broth ; a race at count'.-y weddings, who 
shall first reach the bridegroom's house on return- 
ing from church. 

Brows'.er-wives, ale-house wives. 

Brugh, a burgh. 

Bruiltie, a broil, a combustion, 

Brunt, did burn, burnt. 

Brust, to burst ; burst. 

Buchan-bullers , the boiling of the sea among the 
rocks on the coast of Buchan. 

Buckskin, an inhabitant of Virginia. 

Bught,a. pen. 

Bughtin-'.ime, the time of collecting the sheep in the 
pens to be milked. 

Buirdly, stout-made ; broad-made. 

Bum-clock, a humming beetle that flies in the sum- 
mer evenings. 

Bumming, humming as bees. 

Bummle, to blunder. 

Bummler, a blunderer. 

Bunker, a window-seat. 

Burdies, diminutive of birds. 

Bure, did bear. 

Burn, water ; a rivulet. 

Burnewin, i. e.burn the wind, a blacksmith. 

Burnie, diminutive of burn. 

Buskie, bushy. 

Buskit, dressed. 

Busks, dresses. 

Bitssle, a bustle; to bustle. 

Buss, shelter. 

But,bot, with; without. 

But an' ben, the country kitchen and parlour. 

P.u hhnse.l, lunatic, distracted. 

Byke, a bee -hive. 

Byre, a cow-stable ; a sheep-pen. 



C. 



CA', To call, to name ; to drive. 

Ca't, or ca'd, called, driven ; calved. 

Cadger, a carrier. 

Cadie, or caddie, a person ; a young fellow. 

Caff, chaff. 

Caird, a tinker. 

Cairn, a loose heap of stones. 

Caff'ward, a small enclosure for calves. 

Cdllan, a boy. 

Caller, fresh ; sound ; refreshing. 

Canie. or cannie, pentle, mild ; dexterous. 



Cannilie, dexterously ; gently. 
Cantie, or canty, cheerful, merry. 
Cantraip, a charm, a spell. 
Cap-sta:ie, core-stone ; key-stone. 
Carccrin, cheerfully. 
Car/, an old man. 
Car/in, a clout old woman. 
Cartes, cards. 

n , a caldron. 
Cauk and keel, chalk and red clay. 
Cauld, cold. 

Caup, a wooden drinking-vessel. 
Cesses, taxes. 

Chanter, a part of a bagpipe. 
Chap, a person, a fellow ; a blow. 

a blow. 
Cheekit, checked. 
Clieep, it chirp ; to chirp. 

r cheel, a young fellow. 

ate, a fire-place. 
- : , the fireside. 
.■■:, shivering, trembling. 
I Uokhig. 
Chow, to chew ; cheek for chow, side by aide. 
I • laced. 

Clachan, a small village about a church ; a hamlet, 
Claise, or claes, clothes. 
Claith, cloth. 
Claiihing, c.othing. 

i nonsense; not speaking sense. 
Clap, clapper of a mill. 
C/arkil, wrote. 

Clash, an idle tale, the story of the day. 
Clatter, to tell idle stories ; an iuie story. 
Claught, snatched at, laid hold of. 
C/aut, to clsan ; to scrape. 
ClauleC, scraped. 
Clivers, idle storie3. 
Claw, to scratch. 
Cleed, to clothe. 
Cleeds, clothes. 
Cteekit, having caught. 
Clinkin, jerking ; clinking. 
Clinkumbell, he who rings the church-bell. 

shears. 
CHshmarlaver, idle conversation. 
Clock, to hatch ; a oeetle. 
Clockin, hatching. 
Cloot, the hoof of a cow, sheep, &c. 
Clootie, an old name for the Devil. 
Clour, a bump or swelling after a blow. 
Cluds, clouds. 
Coaxin, wheedling. 
Coble, a fishing-buat. 
Cockernony, aloek of hair tied ufDn a girl's head ■ 

a cap. 
Coft, bought. 
Cog, a wooden dish. 
Coggie, diminutive of cog. 
Coila, from Kyle, a district of Ayrshire ; so called, 

saith tradition, from Coil, or Coilus, aPictish mon- 
arch. 
Collie, a general, and sometimes a particular name 

for country curs. 
Collieshangie, quarrelling, an uproar. 
Com maun, command. 
Cood, the cud. 
Coof, a blockhead; a ninny. 
Coal-it, appeared, and disappeared hv fits. 
Coost, did cast. 
Coot, the ancle or foot. 
Coorte, a wooden kitchen dish: — also, those foisls 

whose legs are clad with feathers, are said to be 

cootie. 
Corbies, a species of the crow. 
Core, corps; party; clan. 
Corn't, fed with oats. 

Colter, the inhabitant of a cot-house, or cottage, 
Couthic, kind, loving. 
Cove, a cave. 
Cowe, to terrify ; to keep under, to lop; a flight ; 

a branch of furze, broom, &c. 
Cowp, to barter ; to tumble over ; a gang. 
Cowpit, tumbled. 
Cowrin, cowering. 



GLOSSARY. 



155 



dmi, a colt, 

Coxit, snug. 

Coxity, snugly. 

Crabbit, crabbed, fistful. 

Crack, conversation ; to converse. 

Ctackin, conversing. 

Craft, or croft, a field near a house (in old hus- 

baiJiry.) 
Craiks, cries or calls incessantly ; £. bird. 
Crambo-clink, or crambo-jingle, rhymes, doggerel 

verses. 
Crank, the noise of an ungreased wheel. 
Crankous, fretful, captious. 
Cranreuch, the hoarfrost. 
Crap, a crop ; to crop. 
Craw, a crow of a cock ; a ronk. 
Creel, a basket ; to have one's wits in a. creel, to oe 

crazed ; to be fascinated. 
Creepie-stool, the same as cutty-stool. 
Creeshie, greasy. 
Crood, or croud, to coo a' a dove. 
Croon, a hollow anil continued moan ; 10 make a 

noise like the continued roar of a bull; to hum a 

tune. 
Crooning, humming. 
Crouchie, crook-backed. 
Crouse, cheerful ; courageous. 
Crousely, cheerfully ; courageously. 
Crowdie,& composition of oat-meal and boiled wa- 
ter, sometimes from the broth or ueef, mutton, &c. 
Croiodie-time, breakfast time. 
Orowlin, crawling. 

Crumnvjck, a cow with crooked horns. 
Crump, hard and brittle ; spoken of bread. 
Crunt, a blow on the head with a cudgel. 
Cuif, a blockhead, a ninny. 
Cummock, a short stall" with a crooked head. 
Curchie, a courtesy. 
Curler, a player ai a game on the ice, practised in 

Scotland, called curling. 
Curlie, curled, whose hair falls naturally in ringlets. 
Curling, a well known game on the ice. 
Curmurring, murmuring ; a slight rumbling noise. 
Curpin, the crupper. 
Cushat, the dove, or wood-pigeon. 
Cutty, short ; a spoca broken in the middle. 
Cutty-stool the stool of repentance. 



DADDIE, a father. 

DoJJin, merriment ; foolishness. 

Daft, merry, giddy ; foolish. 

D i, rare, now and then ; daimenicker, an ear 

of corn now and then. 
Dainty, pleasant, good humoured, t-greeaMe. 
Daise, daez, u. stupify. 
Dales, plains, valleya, 
Darklins, darkling. 
Daud, to thrash, to abuse. 
Daw, to dare. 
Daurt, dared. 

Daurg, or daurk, a day's labour. 
Davoc, David. 
Dawd,n large piece. 
Dawtit, or dawlet, fondled, caressed. 
Dearies, diminutive of dears. 
Dearth J V ', dear. 
Deaoe, lo deafen. 

Deil-ma-care! no matter 1 for all that 1 
Deleerit, delirious. 
Descrive, to describe. 
Digkt, to wipe ; to clean com from chaff. 
Dight, cleaned from chaff. 
Ding, to worst, to push. 
Dink, neat, tidy, drim. 
Dinna, do uot. 

Dirl, a slight tremulous sti jke or pain. 
Dizen, or'dizz'r, a dozen. 
Doited, stupified, hebetated 
Dolt, stu ified, crazed. 
Donsie, unlucky. 

Dool, sorrow ; to sing dool. tn lament, to mourn 
Oops, d)ves. 



Dorty, saucy, nice. 

Douce, or douse, sober, wise, prudent. 

Doucety, soberly, prudently. 

Dought, was or were able. 

Doup, backside. 

Doup-skelper, one that strikes the tail. 

Dour and din, sullen and sadow. 

Doure, stout, durable ; sullen, stubborn. 

Dow, am or are able, can. 

DowJT, pithless, wanting force. 

Dowie. worn with grief, fatigue, &c. half asleep. 

Downa, am or are not able, cannot. 

Doylt, stupid. 

Dozen'l, stupified, impotent. 

Drap, a drop ; to drop. 

Draigle, to aci\ by trailing, to draggle among wet, &c. 

Drajipitig, dropping. 

Draunting, drawling ; of a slow enunciation. 

Dreep, to ooze, to drop. 

Dretgh, tedious, long about it. 

Dribble, drizzling; slaver. 

Drift, a drove. 

Droddum, the breech. 

Drone, part of a bagpipe. 

Dronp-rumpVt, that drops at the crupper, 

Droukit, wet. 

D*ounting, drawling. 

Drouth, thirst, drought. 

Druncken, drunken. 

Drumly, muddy. 

Drummock, meal ait 1 water mixed in a raw ctate. 

Drunt, pet, sour humour. 

Dub, a small pond. 

Duds, rags, clothes. 

Duddie, ragged. 

Duns, worsted ; pushed, driven. 

Dunted, beaten, boxed. 

Dusli, to push as a ram, &c. 

Dusht, pushed by a ram, ox, &c. 



E'E, the eye. 

E'en, the eyes. 

E'enin, evening. 

Eerie, frighted, dieading spirits. 

Eild. old age. 

Elbuck, the elbow. 

Eldritch, ghastly, frightful. 

Eller, an elder, or chuscii officer. 

L'n', end. 

Enbrugh, Edinburgh. 

Eneugh, enough. 

Especial, especially. 

Ettle, to try, to attempt. 

Eydenl, diligent. 



FA\ fall; lot; to fall. 

Fa's, dues fall ; water-falls. 

Earldom'!, fathomed. 

Fae, a foe. 

Faem, foam. 

Faiket, unknown. 

Fairin, a fairing ; a present. 

Fallow, fellow. 

Fund, did find. 

Fori, a cake of oaten bread, &c. 

Fash, trouble, care ; to trouble to sare (oil 

Fasht, troubled. 

Fasteren e'en, Fasten's Even. 

Fauld, a fold , to fold. 

Paulding, folding. 

Faut, fault. 

Faute, want, lack. 

Fawsont, decent, seemly. 

Feal, a field ; smooth. 

Fearfu', frightful. 

Fear't, frighted. 

Feat, neat, spruce. 

Fecht, to fight. 

Fcrhtin, lighting. 



156 



GLOSSARY. 



Feck, many, plenty. 

Fecket, an under wai3' coat with sleeves. 

Feckfu', large, brawny, stout. 

Feckless, puny, weak, silly. 

Feckly, weakly. 

Fes,&f\«. 

Fe'ide, feud, enmity. 

Feirrie, stout, vigorous, healthy. 

Fell, keen, biting ; the flesh immediately under the 

skin ; a field pretty level, on the side or top of a 

hill. 
Fen, successful struggle ; fight. 
Fend, to live comfortably. 
Ferlie, or ferity, to wouder ; a wonder ; a term of 

contempt. 
Fetch, to pull by fits. 
Fetch 1 !, pulled intermittently, 
Fidge, to fidget. 
Fiel, soft, smooth. 
Fient, fieri- a petty oath. 
Fier, sound, healthy ; a brother ; a friend. 
Fissle, to make a rustling noise ; to fidget ; a bustle. 
Fit, a foot. 
Fittie-lan', the nearer horse of the hindmost pair in 

the plough. 
Fizz, to make a hissing noise like fermentation. 
Flainen, flannel. 

Fleech, to supplicate in a flattering manner. 
Fleech'd, supplicated. 
Fleechin, supplicating. 
Fleesh, a fleece. 
Fleg, a kick, a random. 
Flether, to necoy by fair words. 
Fletherin, flattering. 
Fiey, to scare, to frighten. 
Flichter, to nutter, as yrung nestlings when their 

dam approaches. 
Flinders, shreds, broken pieces, splinters, 
Flinging-tree, a piece of timber hung by way of par- 
tition between two horses in a stable ; a flail. 
Flisk, to fret at the yoke. Fliskit, fretted. 
Flitter, to vibrate like the wings of small birds. 
Flittering, fluttering, vibrating. 
Flunkie, a servant in livery. 
Fodgel, squat and plump. 
Foord, a ford. 
Forbears, forefathers. 
Forbye, besides. 

Forfairn, distressed ; worn out, jaded. 
Forfoughten, fatigued. 
Forgather, to meet, to encounter with. 
Forgie, to forgive. 
Forjesket, jaded with fatigue. 
Father, fodder. 
Fou, full ; drunk. 
Foughten, troubled, harassed. 
Fouth, plenty, enough, or more than enough. 
Fow, a bushel, &c. ; also a pitch-fork. 
Frae, from ; off. 

Frammit, strange, estranged from, at enmity with. 
Freath, froth. 
Frien', friend. 
IV, full. 

Fud, the scut, or tail of the hare, cony, &c. 
F uff, to blow intermittently. 
Fuff't, did blow. 
Funnie, full of merriment. 
Fur, a furrow. 
Furm, a form, bench. 
Fyke, trifling cares ; to piddle, to be in a fuss about 

trifles. 
Fyle, to soil, to Jirty. 
FyVt, soiled, dirtied. 



G. 



GA B, the month ■ to speak boldly, or pertly. 

Gaber-lunzie, an old man. 

Gadsman, a plottghboy, the boy that drives the 
horses in the plojgh. 

Gae, to go ; gaed, went ; gaen, or gane, gone ; gaun, 
going. 

Gaet, or gate, way, manner ; road. 

Gairs, triangular pieces of cloth sewed cm the bot- 
tom of a gown, &c 



Gang, to go, to walk. 

Gar, to make, to force to. 

Gar't, forced to. 

Garten, a garter. 

Gash, wise, sagacious ; talkative ; to converse. 

Gashin, conversing. . 

Gaucy, jolly, large. 

Gaud, a plough. 

Gear, riches ; goods of any kind.' 

Geek, to toss the head in wantonness or scorn. 

Ged, a pike. 

Gentles^ great folks, gentry. 

Genty, elegantly formed, neat. 

Geordit, a guinea. 

Get, a child, a young one. 

Ghaist, a ghost. 

Gie, to give; gied, gave ; gien, given. 

Giftie, diminutive of gilt. 

Gig!, Is, playful girls. 

Gillie, diminutive of gill. 

Gilpey, a half grown, half informed boy or girl, 

romping lad, a hoiden. 
Gimmer, a ewe from one to two years olr'.. 
Gin, if ; against. 
Gipsry, a young girl. 
Girn, to grin, to twist the features in rage, agony, 

&c. 
Girrung, grinning. 
Gizz, a periwig. 
Glaikit, inattentive, Polish. 
Glaiiie, a sword. 

Gawky, half-witted, foolish, rnmping. 
Glni-Sie, glittering ; smooth like glass. 
Glaum, to snatch greedily. 
Giaum'd, aimed, snatched. 
Gleck, sharp, ready. 
Gleg, sharp, ready. 
GUib, glebe. 

Glen, a dale, a deep valley. 
Gley, a squint ; to squint ; a-gley, off at a side; 

wrong. 
Glib-gabbet, smooth and ready in speech. 
Glint, to peep. 
Glinted, peeped. 
Glinlih, peeping. 
Gloamin, the twilight. 
Glowr, to stare, to look ; a stare, a look. 
Glowred, looked, stared. 
Glunsh, a frown, a sour look. 
Goavan, looking round with a strange, inquiring 

gaze ; staring stupidly. 
Gowan, the flower of the wild daisy, hawk-w»ed, &c. 
Gowany, daisied, abounding with daisies. 
Gnwa, gold. 
Gouff, the game of Golf; to strike as the bat does 

the ball at golf. 
Gowff'd, struck. 

Gowk, a cookoo ; a term of cont.mpt. 
Gowl, to howl. 

Grane, or grain, a groan ; to groan. 
Grain'd mid grunted, groaned and grunted. 
Graining, groaning. 

Graip, a pronged instrument for cleaning stables. 
Graith, accoutrements, furniture, dress, gear. 
Grannie, grandmother. 
Grape, to grope. 
Grapil, groped. 
Grat, wept, shed tears. 
Great, intimate, familiar. 
Gree, to agree ; to bear the gree, to be decidedly 

victor. 
GreeH, agreed. 
Greet, to shed tears, to weep. 
Greetia, ciying, weeping. 
Grippet, catched, seized. 
Groat, to get. the whistle of one's groat, to play a 

losing game. 
Gronsome, loathsomely, grim. 
Grozet, a gooseberry. 
Grumph, a grunt ; to grunt. 
Grumphie, a sow. 
Grun' , ground. 
Grunstane, a grindstone. 
Gruntle, the phiz : a grunting noise. 
Grvnzie, mouth. 
Grushie, thick j of thriving growth. 



GLOSSARY. 



157 



Qvat^ the Supreme Being ; good. 

Quid, good. 

Guid-mor?iing, good morrow. 

Guid-e'en, good evening. 

Guidvian and guidwife, the master and mistress of 
the house ; young guidman, a man newly married. 

Giud-willie, liberal ; cordial. 

Guidfather, guidmother, father-in-law, and mother- 
in-law. 

Gully, or gullie, a large knife. 

Gumlie, muddy. 

Gusty, tasteful. 



HA', hall. 

Ha'-Bible, the great bible that lies in the hall. 

Ilae, to have. 

Haen, had, the participle. 

Haet,fient, haet, a petty oath of negation ; nothing. 

Haffet, the temple, the tide of the head. 

Haflms, nearly half, partly. 

Hag, a scar, cr gulf, or gulf in mosses, and moors. 

Haggis, a kind of pudding boiled in the stomach of 

a cow or sheep. 
Hain, to spare, to save. 
Hain'd, spared. 
Hairst, harvest. 
Hailh, a petty oath. 

Haivers, nonsense, speaking without thought. 
Hal' , or hald, an abiding place. 
Hale, whole, tight, healthy. 
Haiy, holy. 
Hame, home. 
Hatlan, a particular partition-waL in a cottage, or 

more properly a seat of turf at the outside. 
Hallowmas, HaJ'ow-eve, the 31st of October. 
flame ly, homely, affable. 
Han', or haun', hand. 
Hap, an outer carinout, EKiatie, plaid, &c. to wrap, 

to cov r ; to hop. 
Happer, a hopper. 
Happing, hopping 

Hap step an' loup, h«o skip and leap. 
Harkit, hearkened. 
Horn, very coars;; linen. 
Hash, a fellow that neither knows how to dress nor 

act with propriety. 
IJastit, hastened. 
Hand, to hoid. 

Houghs, low lying, rich lands ; valleys. 
Hnurl, to drag ; to peel. 
Haurlin, peeling. 

Haverel, a half-witted person ; half-witted. 
Havins, good manners, decorum, giod sense. 
Hniokie, a cow, properly one with a white face. 
Heopit, heaped. 

Healsome, healthful, wholesome. 
Hearse, hoarse. 
Hear't, hear it. 
Wither, heath. 
Hec/i ! oh ! strange. 
Hecht, promised ; t--> foretell something that is to be 

got or given ; foretold ; the thing foretold ; offered. 
Heckle, a board, in which are fixed a number of 

sharp pins, used in dressing hemp, flax, &c. 
Heeze, to elevate, to raise. 
Hflm, the rudder or helm. 
Heid, to tend flocks ; one who tends flocks. 
Hei-rin, a herring. 
Hern/, to plunder ; most properly to plunder birds' 

nests. 
Herryment, plundering, devastation. 
Hersei, herself; also a herd of cattle, of any sort. 
Het, hot. 

Heugh, a crae, a coalpit. 
Hilch, a hobble ; to halt. 
Hilchin, halting. 
Himsel, himself. 
Wney, honey. 
Hing, to hang. 

Hirple, to walk cra7.i!y, to creep. 
Hissel, so many cattle as one person can attend. 
Histie, dry ; chapped , barren. 
Hitch, a loop, a knot. 



Hizzie, a hussy, a young gir. 

Hoddin the motion of a sage countryman riding on 

a cart-horse ; humble. 
Hog-score, a kino, of distance line, in curling, drawn 

across the rink. 
Hog-shouther, a kind of horse play, by justling with 

the shoulder; to justle. 
Hool, oute- skin or case, a nut-shell ; a peas-cod. 
Hoolie, slowly, leisurely. 
Hoolie ! take leisure* stop. 
Hoord, a hoard ; to hoard. 
Hoordit, horded. 
Horn, a spoon made of horn. 
Hornie, one of the many names of the devil. 
Host, or hoast, to cough ; a cough. 
Hostin, coughing. 
Hosts, coughs. 

Hotch'd, turned topsyturvy ; blended, mixed. 
Iloughmagundie, fornication. 
Houlet , an owl. 
Housie, diminutive of house. 
Hove, to heave, to swell. 
Hov'd, heaved, swelled. 
Howdie, a midwife. 
Howe, hollow ; a hollow or dell. 
Howebackil, sunk in the back, spoken of a bene, &« 
Howff, a tippling house ; a house of resort. 
Howk, to dig. 
Howkil, digged. 
Howkin, digging. 
Howlel, an owl. 
Hoy, to urge. 
Jloy't, urged. 
Hcyse, to pull upwards. 
Hoyte, to amble crazily. 
Hug'ioc, diminutive of Hugh. 
Hurcheon, a hedgehog. 
Hardies, the loins. 
Hushior 



/'. in. 

Icher, an ear of corn. 

Ier-oe, a great-grandchild. 

Ilk, or Ilka, each, every. 

Ill- Willie, ill-natured, malicious, niggardly. 

Ingine, genius, ingenuity. 

Ingle, fire ; fire-place. 

Ise, I shall or will. 

Ithir, other ; one another. 



J. 



J AD, jade ; also a familiar term among country folks 
for a giddy young girl. 

Jauk, to dally, to trifle. 

Jaukin, trifling, dallying. 

Jaup, a jerk of water ; to jerk as agitated water. 

Jaw, a coarse raillery ; to pour out ; to shut, to jerk 
as water. 

Jerkinet, a jerkin, or short gown. 

Jillet, a jilt, a giddy girl. 

Jimp, to jump ; slender in the waist ; handsome. 

J imps, easy stays. 

Jink, to dodge, to turn a corner ; a sudden turning ; 
a corner. 

Jinker, that turns quickly ; a gay, sprightly girl ; a 
wag. 

Jinkin, dodging. 

Juk, a jerk. 

Jocteleg, a kind of knife. 

Jouk, to stoop, to bow the head. 

Jow, tojow, a verb which includes both the swing- 
ing motion and pealing sound of a large bell. 

Judie, to justle. 



K. 



Ji:^E,adaw. 

Sail, colewort ; a kind of oroth. 

Kfiil-runt, the stem of colewort. 

Knin, fowls, &c paid as rent by a fanner. 



158 



GLOSSARY. 



Kebbuck, a cheese. 

Keckle to giggle ; to titter. 

Keek, a peep, to peep. 

Kelpies, a sort of mischievous spirits, said to haunt 

fords and ferries at night, especially in storms. 
Ken, to know ; kend or kenn'd knew. 
Kennin, a small matter 
Kenspeckle, well known, easily known. 
Ket, matted, hairy ; a fleece of wool. 
Kilt, to truss up the clothes. 
Kimmer, a young girl, a gossip. 
Kin, kindred ; kin', kind, adj. 
King's-hood, a certain part of the entrails of an ox, 

&c. 
Kintra, country. 
Kintra Cooser, country stallion. 
Kirn, the harvest supper ; a churn. 
Kirsen, to christen, or baptize. 
Kist, a chest ; a shop counter. 
Kitchen, any thing that eats with bread ; to serve 

for soup, gravy, it. 
Kith,- kindred. 

Kiltie, to tickle ; ticklish ; lively, apt. 
Kittlin, a young cat. 
Kiuttle, to cuddle. 
Kiuttlin, cuddling. 

Knaggie, like knags, or points of rocks. 
Knap, to strike sharply, a smart blow. 
Knappin-hamnter, a hammer tor breaking stones. 
Knowe, a small round hillock. 
Knurl, a dwarf. 
Kye, cows. 

Kyle, a district in Ayrshire. 
Kyte, the belly. 
Kythe, to discover ; to shew one's self. 



LADDIE, diminutive of lad. 

Laggen, the angle between the side and bottom of a 

wooden dish. 
Laigh, low. 

Liiring, wading, and sinking in snow, mud, &c. 
Lailh, loath. 

Lrithfu', bashful, sheepish. 
Lallans, the Scottish dialect of the English lan- 



Lampit, a kind of shell fish, a limpU. 

Lan', land ; estate. 

Lane, lone ; my lane, thy lane, Sfc. myself alone, &c. 

Lanely, lonely. 

Lang, long ; to think lang, to long, to weary. 

Lap, did leap. 

Lave, the rest, the remainder, the others. 

Laverock, the lark. 

Lawin, shot, reckoning, bill. 

Lxwland, lowland. 

Lea'd, to leave. 

Leal, loyal, true, faithful. 

Lea-rig, grassy ridge. 

Lear, (pronounce lare,) learning. 

Lee-lang, live-long. 

Leesome, pleasant. 

Leeze-me, a phrase of congratulatory endearment ; 

I am happy in thee, or proud of thee. 
Leister, a three pronged dart for striking fish. 
Leugh, did laugh. 
Lnik, a look ; to look. 
Libbet, gelded. 
Lift, the sky. 

Lightly, sneeringly ; to sneer at. 
Lilt, a ballad ; a tune ; to sing. 
Limmer, a kept mistress, a strumpet. 
Limp't, limped, hobbled. 
Link, to trip along. 
Linkin, tripping. 
Linn, a water-fall ; a precipice. 
Lint, flax ; lint i' the bell, flax in flower. 
Lintwhite, a linnet. 
Loan, or loanin, the place of milking. 
Loof, the palm of the hand. 
Loot, did let. 
Looves, plural of loot. 



Loun, a fellcw, a ragamuffin ; a woman o* eaff 

virtue. 
Loup, jump, leap. 
Lowe, a fiame. 
Lowin, flaming. 

Lowrie, abbreviation of Lawrence. 
Lowse, to loose. 
Lows'd, loosed. 
Lug, the ear ; a handle. 
Lugget, having a handle. 
Luggie, a small wooden dish with a handlo. 
hum, the chimney. 

Lunch, a large piece of cheese, flesh, &c. 
Lunt, a column of smoke ; to smoke. 
Luntin, smoking. 
Lyart, or a mixed colour, gray. 



MAE, more. 

Mair, more. 

Maist, most, almost. 

Maistly, mostly. 

Male, to make. 

Ma kin, making. 

Mail en, a farm. 

Mallie, Molly. 

Mang, among, 

Manse, the parsonage house, where the minigtei 

live?. 
Manteele, a mantle. 
Mark, marks, (This and several other nouns which 

in English require an s, to form the plural, are 

in Scotch, like the words sheep, deer, the samt 

in both numbers.) 
Marled, variegated ; spotted. 
Mar's year, the year 1715. 
Marshium, meslin, mixed corn. 
Mask, to mash, as malt, &c. 
Maskin-pat, a tea-pot. 

Mand, ?/iaad, a plaid worn by shepherds, &c. 
Maukin, a hare. 
Mann, must. 
Mn.vis, the thiush. 
Mate, to mow. 
Mawin, mowing. 
Mecre, a mare. 
Meikle, Tneicklr, much. 
Melancholioue, mournful. 
Mtlder, corn, or grain of any kind, sent to tbe rail 

to be ground. 
Mell, to meddle. Also a mallet for pounding barlej 

in a stone trough. 
MJvie, to soil with meal. 
Mi n\ to mend. 

Mense, good manners, decorum. 
Menseless, ill bred, rude, impudent 
Mess in, a small dog. 
Mid'.l n, a dunghill. 

Midden-hole, a gutter at the bottom of a dunghill 
Mhn, prim, affectedly meeK. 
Min', mind ; resemblance. 
Mi>id't, mind it ; resolved, intending 
Minnie, mother, dam. 
Mirk, mirkst, dark, darkest. 
Misca', to abuse, to call names. 
Misca'd, abused. 

Mislrar'd, mischievous, unmannerly. 
Misteuk, mistook. 
Milher, a mother. 
Mirtie-maxtie, confusedly mixed, 
Moistify, to moisten. 
Mo- y, or monie, many. 
Mools, dust, earth, the earth of the grave. Toraki 

V the mools ; to lay in the dust. 
Moop, to nibble as a sheep. 
Moortan', of or b< longing to moors. 
Morn, the next day, tomorrow. 
Mou, the mouth. 
Moudiwort, a mole. 
Mousie, diminutive of mouse. 
Muckle, or mickle, great, big, much. 
MuaU, diminutive of muse. 



GLOSSARY. 



159 



Muslin-kail, broth, composed simply of water, 

ahelled-barley, and greens. 
Mutc/ikin, an English pint. 
Mysel, myself. 



N. 



NA, no, not, nor. 

Nae, no, not any. 

Naething, or nailhing, nothing. 

Naig, a horse. 

Nane, none. 

Nappy, ale ; to be tipsy. 

Negleckit t neglected. 

Neuk, a nook. 

Niest, next. 

Nieve, the fist. 

Nieoefu', handful. 

Niffer, an exchange ; to exchange, to barter. 

Niger, a negro. 

Nine-tail'd-cat, a hangman's whip. 

Nit, a nut. 

Norland, of or belonging to the north. 

Notic't, noticed. 

Nowte, black cattle. 



O', of. 

Ochsls, name of mountains. 
Ohaith, faith I an oath. 
Ony, or onie, any. 
Or, is often used (or ere, before. 
Ora, or orra, supernumerary, that can be spared. 
O't, of it. 

Ourie, shivering ; drooping. 
Oursel, or oursds, ourselves. 
Outlers, cattle not housed. 
Ower, over ; too. 

Ower-hip, a way of fetching a blow with the ham- 
mer over the arm. 



PACK, intimate, familiar ; twelve stone of wool. 

Painch, paunch. 

Paitrick, a patridge. 

Pang, to cram. 

Parle, speech. 

Parritch, oatmeal pudding, a well-known Scotch 
dish. 

Pat, did put ; a pot. 

Pattle, or pettle, a plough-staff. 

Paughly, proud, haughty. 

Pauley, or pawkie, cunning, sly. 

Pay't, paid ; beat. 

Pech, to fetch the breath short, as in an asthma. 

Pechan, the crop, the stomach. 

Peelin, peeling, the rind of fruit. 

Pet, a domesticated sheep, &c. 

Pettle, to cherish ; a plough-staff. 

Philibegs, short petticoats worn by the Highland- 
men. 

Phraise, fair speeches, flattery ; to flatter. 

Phraisin, flattery. 

Pibroch, Highland war music adapted to the bag- 
pipe. 

Pickle, a small quantity. 

Pine, pain, uneasiness. 

Pit, to put. 

Placard, a public proclamation. 

Plack, an old Scotch coin, the third part of a Scotch 
penny, twelve of which make an English penny. 

Plackless, pennyless, without money. 

Platie, diminutive of plate. 

Plew, or pleugh, a plough. 

Pliskie, a trick. 

Poind, to seize cattle or goods for rent, as the laws 
of Scotland allow. 

Poortiih, poverty. 

Pou, to pull. 

Pouk, to pluck. 



Poussie, a hare, or cat. 

Pout, a poult, a chick. 

Pou't, did pull. 

Powthery, like powder. 

Pow, the head, the skull. 

Pownie, a little horse. 

Powther, or pouther, powder. 

Preen, a pin. 

Prent, to print ; print. 

Prie, to taste. 

Prie'd, tasted. 

Prief, proof. 

Prig, to cheapen ; to dispute. 

Priggin, cheapening. 

Primsie, demure, precise. 

Propone, to lay down, to propose. 

Provoses, provosts. 

Puddock-stool, a mushroom, fungus. 

Pund, pound ; pounds. 

Pyle — a pyle o' chaff, a single grain of chaff. 

a. 

QJJAT, to quit. 
Quak, to quake. 
Quey, a cow from one (o two years old. 



RAGWEED, the herb ragwort. 

Raible, to rattle nonsense. 

Rair, to roar. 

Raize, to madden to inflame. 

Ram-feezi'd, fatigued ; overspread 

Ram-stam, thoughtless, forward. 

Raploch, (properly) a coarse cloth ; butused as an 

adnounfor coarse. 
Rarely, excellently, very well. 
Rash, a rush ; rash-buss, a bush of rushes. 
Ration, a rat, 

Raucle, rash ; stout ; fearless. 
Raught, reached. 
Raw, a row, 
Rax, to stretch. 
R'am, cream : to cream. 
R aming, brimful, frothing. 
R ar , rove. 
Reck, to heed. 
Rtd. , counsel ; to counsel. 

Rtd-wat-shod, walking in blood over the shoe-lop*. 
Rtd-to.d, stark mad. 
Bee, half-drunk, fuddled. 
Reek, smoke. 
R rki'i, Bmoking. 
Rcekit, smoked; smoky, 
Rim ad, remedy, 
Requite, requited. 
R st, to stand restive. 
R slit, stood restive ; stunted ; withered. 
Restrieked, restricted. 
Rew, to repent, to compassionate. 
Rief, reef, plenty. 
Rief randies, sturdy beggars. 
Rig, a ridge. 
Rigwiddie, rigwoodi \ t lie rope or chain that crosses 

the saddle of a horse to support the spokss cf a, 

cart ; spare, withered, sapless. 
Rin, to run, to melt ; rinnin, running. 
Rink, the course of the stones; a term in curling 

on ice. 
Rip, a handful of un threshed corn. 
Rishit, made a noise like the tearing of roots. 
Rockin, spinning on the rock or distaff. 
Rood stands likewise for the plural roods. 
Roon a shred, a border or selvage 
Roose, to praise, to commend. 
Roosty, rusty. 

Roun', round, in the circle of neighbourhood. 
Rouprt, hoarse, as with a cold. 
Routhie, plentiful. 
Row, to roll, to wrap. 
Row't, rolled, wrapped. 
Rowte, to low, to bellow. 
Rowth, or routh, plenty. 
Rowtin, lowing. 



160 



Rung, a cudgel. 
Runkled, wrinkled. 



GLOSSARY. 



Runt, the stem of colewort or cabbage 
Ruth, a woman's name ; the book so called ; sor- 
row. 
Ryky, to reach. 



SAE, so. 

Sajfi 

Sair, to serve ; a sore. 

Sairly, or sairlie, sorely. 

Saie't, served. 

Sark, a shirt: a shift. 

Sarkit, provided in shirts. 

Sough, the willow. 

Saul, soul. 

Saumont, salmon. 

Saunt, a saint. 

Saut, salt, adj. salt. 

Sew, to sow. 

Sawin, sowing. 

Sax, six. 

Scaiih, to damage, to injure ; injury. 

Bear, a cliff. 

Scaud, to scald. 

Scauld, to scold. 

Scaur, apt to be scared. 

Scawl, a scold ; a termigant. 

Scon, a cake of bread. 

Sconner, a loathing ; to loathe. 

Scraich, to scream as a hen, partridge, &c. 

Screed, to tear ; a rent. 

Scrieve, to glide swiftly along. 

Scrievin, gleesomely ; swiftly. 

Scrimp, to scant. 

Scrimpct, did scant ; scanty. 

See'd, did see. 

Seizin, seizing. 

Set, self; a body's sel, one's self alone. 

Sell't, did sell. 

Sen', to send. 

Sen't, I, &c. sent, or did send it ; send it. 

Servan', servant. 

Settlin, settling ; to get a settlin, to be frighted into 
quietness. 

Sets, sets off; goes away. 

Shackled, distorted ; shapeless. 

Shaird, a shred, a shard. 

Shangan, a stick cleft at one end for putting the tail 
of a clog, &c. into, by way of mischief, or to fright- 
en him away. 

Shaver, a humourous wag ; a barber. 

Shaw, to show ; a small wood in a hollow. 

Sheen, bright, shining. 

Sheep-shank ; to think one's self nae sheep-shank, 
to be conceited. 

Sherra-moor, sheriff-mour, the famous battle fought 
in the rebellion, A. D. 1715. 

Sheugh, a ditch, a trench, a sluice. 

Shiel, a shed, 

Shill, shrill. 

Shog, a shock ; a push off at one side. 

Shool, a shovel. 

Shoon, shoes. 

Shore, to offer, to threaten. 

Shor'd, offered. 

Shouther, the shoulder, 

Share, did shear, shore. 

Sic, such. 

Sicker, sure, steady. 

Sideling, sidelong, slanting. 

Siller, silver ; money. 

Simmer, summer. 

Sin, a son. 

Sin', since. 

Skaith, see scaith. 

Skellum, a worthless fellow 

Skelp, to strike, to slap ; to walk with a smart 

tripping step ; a smart stroke. 
Skelpie-limmer, a reproachful term in female 
»colding. 



Skelpin, stepping, walking. 

,Skic°h, or skeigh, proud, nice, high-mettled. 

Skinklin, a small portion. v 

Skirl, to shriek, to cry shrilly. 

Skirli ng, shrieking, crying. 

Skirl' t, shrieked. 

Sklent, slant ; to run, aslant, to deviate from 

truth. 
Sklented, ran, or hit, in an oblique direction. 
Skouth, freedom to converse without restraint ; 

range, scope. 
Skritgh, a scream ; to scream. 
Skyrin, shining ; making a great show. 
Skyte, force, very forcible motion. 
Sine, a sloe. 
Slade, did slide. 

Slap, a gate ; a breach in a fence. 
,^!av,r, saliva ; to emit saliva. 
Slain, slow. 

Slee, sly ; sleest sliest. 
Sl-ckit, sleek; sly. 
Sliddery, slippery. 

Slyp , to fall over, as a wet fuiiow from the plough, 
S/ypH, fell. 
Sma', small. 

Smr.ddum, dust, powder ; mettle, rense. 
Smiddy, a smithy. 
Smoor, to smother. 
Smoor'd, smothered. 
Smoutie, smutty, obscene, ugly. 
Smytrie, a numerous collection of small individuals 

, . to stumble, a stumble. 
Snaeh, abuse, Billingsgate. 
Snaw, snow : to snow. 
Snaw-broo, melted snow. 
Snawie, snowy. 

iek, the latch of a door. 
Sued, to lop, to cut off. 
S-ii. x/tin, snuff. 
Sneeshin-mill. a snuff-box. 
Snell, bitter, biting. 

Snick-drawing, trick-contriving, crafty. 
Snirt/r, to laugh restrainedly. 
Snood, a ribbon for binding the hair. 
Snool, one whose spirit is broken with oppressive 

slavery ; to submit tamely, to sneak. 
Snoove, to go smoothly and constantly, to sneak. 
Snoiek, to scent or snuff, as a dog, &c. 

, scented, snuffed. 
Sonsie, having sweet engaging looks; lucky, jolly 
Soom, to swim. 
Sooth, truth, a petty oath. 
So.igh, a heavy sigh, a sound dying on the ear. 
Souple, flexible ; swift. 
Sonter, a shoemaker. 

Sowcns, a dish made of oatmeal ; the seeds of oat- 
meal soured, &c. flumery. 
Soup, a spoonful, a small quantity of any thing li- 
quid. 

Sowt/i, to try over a tune with a low whistle. 

Sowther, solder ; to solder, to cement. 
Spae, to prophesy, to divine. 

Spaul, a limb. 

Sp lirge, to dash, to soil, as with mire. 

Spaviet, bavin,; the spavin. 

Spean,spane, to wean. 

Sprat oi- spate, a sweeping torrent, after rain or 
thaw. 

Speel, to climb. 

Spence, the country parlour. 

Spier, to ask, inquire. 

Spier't, inquired. 

Splatter, a splutter, to splutter. 

Spleughin, a tobacco-pouch. 

Splore, a frolic ; a noise, riot. 

S'pracklc, gprackle, to clamber. 

Sprat tie, to scramble. 

Speckled, spotted, speckled. 

Spring, a quick air in music ; a Scottish reel. 

Sprit, a tough rooted plant, something like ru*he§. 

Sprit tie, full of spirit. 

Spunk, lire, mettle ; wit. 

Spunkie, mettlesome, fiery ; will-o' -wisp , or ignts 
fatuus. 

Spurlle, a stick used in making oatmeal pudding Of 
porridge. 



GLOSSARY. 



161 



Squad, a cww, a party. 

Squatter, to flutter iu water, as a wild duck, &c. 

Souattle, to sprawl. 

Sgueel, a scream, a screech ; to Bcream. 

Stacker, to stagger. 

Stack, a rick of corn, hay, &c. 

Staggie, the diminutive of stag. 

Stalwart, strong, stout. 

Stant, to stand ; stan't, did stand. 

Stane, a stone. 

Stang, an acirte pain ; a twinge ; to sting. 

Stank, did stink j a pool of standing water. 

Stop, slop. 

Stark, stout. 

Startle, to run as cattle stung by the gad-fly. 

Staumrel, a blockhead ; half-witted. 

Staw, did steal ; to surfeit. 

Stech, to cram the belly. 

Stechin, cramming. 

Steek, to shut ; a stitch. 

Steer, to molest ; to stir. 

Steeve, firm, compacted. 

Stell, a still. 

Sten, to rear as a horse. 

StenU, reared. 

Stents, tribute ; dues of any kind. 

Stey, steep ; steyest, steepest. 

Stibble, stubble ; slibble rig, the reaper iu harvest 
who takes the lead. 

Stick an' stow, totally, altogether. 

Stile, a crutch . to halt, to limp. 

Stimpart, the eighth part of a Winchester bushel. 

Stirk, a cow or bullock a year old. 

Stock, a plant or root of cole wort, cabbage, &c. 

Stockin, a stocking ; throwing tlie stocking, when 
the bride and bridegroom are put into bed, and 
the candle out, the former throws a stocking at 
random among the company, and the person 
whom it strikes is the next that will be married. 

Stoiter, to stagger, to stammer. 

Stooked, made up in shocks as corn. 

Stoor, sounding hollow, strong, and hoarse. 

Stot, an ox. 

Stoup, or stowp, a kind of jug or dish with a 
handle. 

Stoure, dust, more particularly dust in motion. 

Stowlins, by stealth. 

Stown, stolen. 

Stoyte, to stumble. 

Strack, did strike. 

Strap, straw : to die a fair slrae death, to die in 
bed. 

Straik, did strike. 

Straikit, stroked. 

Strappan, tall and handsome. 

Straught, straight, to straighten. 

Streek, stretched, tight ; to stretch. 

Striddle, to straddle. 

Stroan, to spout, to pisa. 

Sluddie, an anvil. 

Stumpie, diminutive of stump. 

Strunt, spirituous liquor of any kind ; to walk stur- 
dily ; huff, sullenness. 

Stuff, corn or pulse of any kind. 

Sturt, trouble ; to molest. 

Stitrlin, frightened. 

Sucker, sugar. 

Sud, should. 

Sugh, the continued rushing noise of wind or water. 

Suthron, southern ; an old name for the English 
nation. 

Swaird, sward. 

Swaird, swelled. 

Swank, stately, jolly, 

Swankie, or swanker, a tight strapping young fel- 
low or girl. 

Swap, an exchange ; to barter. 

Swarf, to swoon ; a swooa. 

Swat, did sweat. 

Swatch, a sample. 

Swats, drink ; good ale. 

Sweaten, sweating. 

Sweer, lazy, averse ; dead-sweer, extremely averse. 

Swoor, swore, did swear. 

Btcinge, to beat ; to whip. 



Swirl, a curve ; an eddying blast, or pool ; a knot 
in wood. 

Swirlie, knaggie, full of knots. 

Sviith, get away. 

Swither, to hesitate in choice ; an irresolute waver- 
ing in choice. 

Syne, since, ago ; then. 



TACKETS, a kind of nails for driving into the 
heels of shoes. 

Tae, a toe ; three-taed, having three prongs. 

Tairge, a target. 

lak, to take ; lakin, taking. 

Tamtallan, the name of a mountain. 

Tangle, a sea-weed. 

Top, the top. 

Tapetless, heedless, foolish. 

Tarrow, to murmur at one's allowance 

Tarrow't, murmured. 

Tarry-breeks, a sailor. 

Tauld, or tald, told. 

Taupie, a foolUh, thoughtless young person. 

Tauttd, or tautie, matted together ; spoken of hair 
or wool. 

Tawie, that allows itself peaceably to be handled ; 
spoken of a horse, cow, &c. 

Teat, a small quantity. 

Teen, to provoke ; provocation. 

Ttdding, spreading after the mower. 

Ten-hours bile, a slight feed for the horses while in 
the yoke, in the forenoon. 

Tent, a field pulpit ; heed, caution ; to take heed; 
to tend or herd cattle. 

Tentie, heedful, caution. 

Tentless, heedless. 

Teugh, tough. 

Thack, thatch; thack an' rape, clothing neces- 
saries. 
Thae, these. 

Thairme, small guts ; fiddle-strings. 
Thankit, thanked. 
Theekit, thatched. 
Th, either, together. 
Thrmsel themselves. 
Thick, intiniAte, familiar, 
Thicvdcss, cold, dry, spited ; spoken of a person's 

demeanour. 
Thir, these. 
Thirl, to thrill. 
Thirled, thrilled, vibrated. 
Thole, to suffer, to endure. 
Thowe, a thaw ; to thaw, 
Thowless, slack, laz>. 
Thrang, throng ; a crowd. 
Thrapple, throat, windpipe. 
Thrave, twenty-four sheaves or two shocks of corn ; 

a considerable number. 
Throw, to sprain, to twist ; to contradict. 
Thrawin, twisting, &c. 
Thrawn, sprained, twisted, contridicted. 
Threap, to maintain by dint of assertion. 
Threshin, thrashing. 
Threteen, thirteen. 
Thristle, thistle. 

Through, to go on with ; to make out. 
Throut/ier, pell-mell, confusedly. 
Thud, to make a loud intermittent noise. 
Thumpit, thumped. 
Thysel, thyself. 
Ttll't, to it. 
Timrntr, timber. 
Tine, to lose ; tint, lost. 
Tineler, a tinker. 
Tint the gate, lost the way. 
Tip, a ram. 
Tippence, twopence. 
Tiri, to make a slight noise ; to uncover. 
Tirlin, uncovering 
Tither, the other. 
Tittle, to whisper. 
Tittlin, whispering. 
Tocher, marriage portion. 



162 



GLOSSARY. 



Tod, a fox. 

Toddle, to totter, like the walk of a child. 

Toddlin, tottering. 

Toom, empty, to empty. 

Toop, a ram. 

Toun, a hamlet ; a farm-house. 

Tout, the blast of a horn or trumpet, to blow a horn, 
&c. 

Tow, a rope. 

Towmond, a twelvemonth. 

Towzie, rough, shaggy. 

Toy, a very olddfashion of female head-dress. 

Toyte, to totter' like old age. 

Transmogrify' d, transmigrated, metamorphosed. 

Trashtrie, trash. 

Trews, trowsers, 

Trickle, full of tricks. 

Trig, spruce, heat. 

Trimly, excellently. 

Trow, to believe. 

Trowtk, truth, a petty oath. 

Tryste, an appointment ; a fair. 

Trysted, appointed ; to tryste, to make an appoint- 
ment. 

Try't, tried. 

Tug, raw hide, of which in old times plough-traces 
were frequently made. 

Tulzie, a quarrel j to quarrel, to fight. 

Twa, two. 

Twa-lhree, a few. 

'Twad, it would. 

Twal, tvrelve ; twal-psnnie worth, a small quantity, 
a penny-worth. 

N. B. One penny English is V2d Scotch. 

Twin, to part. 

Tyke, a dog. 



UNCO, strange, uncouth ; very, very great, pro- 
digious. 
Uncos, news. 
Unkenn'd, unknown. 
Unsicker, unsure, unsteady. 
Unskaith'd, undamaged, unhurt. 
Unweeting, unwittingly, unknowingly. 
Upo' , upon. 
Urchin, a hedge-hog. 



VAP'RIN, vapouring. 
Vera, very. 

Virl, a ring round a column, &c. 
Vittle, corn of all kinds, food. 



W. 



W4',wall; tea's, walls. 

Wabster, a weaver. 

Wad, would ; to bet ; a bet, a pledge. 

Wadna, would not. 

Wae, wo ; sorrowful. 

Waefu', woful, sorrowful, wailing. 

Waesucks! or waes-me.'-alas ! O the pity. 

Waft, the cross thread that goes from the shuttle 

through the web ; woof. 
Wair, to lay out, to expend. 
Wale, choice ; to choose. 
Wal'd, chose, chosen. 
Walie, ample, large, jolly ; also an interjection of 

distress. 
Wame, the belly. 
Wamefu', a belly-full. 
Wanchancie, unlucky. 
Wanreslfu' , restless. 
Wark, work. 

Wark-lume, a tool to work with. 
Warl, or warld, world. 
Warlock, a wizard. 

Warly, worldly, eager on amassing wealth. 
Warran,& warrant ; to warrant. 
Warst, worst. 



Warstl'd, or warsVd, wrestled. 

Wastrie, prodigality. 

Wat, wet ; Iwat, 1 wot, I know. 

Water -brose, brose made of meal and water 

simply, without the addition of milk, butter, &c. 
Wattle, a twig, a wand. 
Wauble, to swing, to reel. 
Waught, a draught. 
Wuukit, thickened as fullers do cloth. 
Wa.ukrife, not apt to sleep. 
Waur, worse ; to worst. 
Waur't, worsted. 
Wean, or weanie, a child. 
Wearie, or weary ; many a weary body, many a 

different person. 
Weason, weasand. 

Weaving the stocking. See, Stocking, p. 177. 
Wee, little ; wee things, little ones ; wee oil, a small 

matter. 
Weel, well ; weelfare, welfare. 
Wet -t, rain, wetness. 
Weird; fate. 
We'se, we shall. 
Wha, who. 
W/ioizle, to whee7.e. 
Whn/pit, whelped. 
Whang, a leather string ; a piece of cheese, bread, 

&c. to give the strappado. 
Whttre, where ; whure'er, wherever. 
Wheep, to fly nimbly, to jerk ; jienny-wheep, small 

beer. 
Whose, whose. 
Whatreck, nevertheless. 
Whid, the motion of a hare, running but not 

frightened ; a lie. 
Whidden, running as a hare or cony. 
Whigmeletries, whims, fancies, crotchets. 
Whingin, crying, complaining, fretting. 
Whirligigunis, useless ornaments, trifling appen- 
dages. 
Whistle, a whistle ; to whistle. 
Whisht, silence ; to hold one's whisht, to be silent. 
Whisk, to sweep, to lash. 
Whiskit, lashed. 

Whitter, a hearty draught of liquor. 
Whun-stane, a whin stone. 
Whyles, whiles, sometimes. 
W.with. 
Wicht, wight, powerful, strong; inventive; of a 

superior genius. 
Wick, to strike a stone in an oblique direction ; a 

term in curling. 
Wicker, willow (the smaller sort.) 
Wiel, a small whirlpool. 
Wifie, a diminutive or endearing term for wife. 
Wilyart, bashful and reserved ; avoiding society 

or appearing awkward in it ; wild, strange, timid. 
Wiwjilt , to meander. 
Wimpy t, meandered. 
Wimplin, waving, meandering. 
Win, to win, to winnow. 
Win't, winded, as a bottom of yarn. 
Win', wind ; win's, winds. 
Winna, will not. 
Winnock, a window. 
Winsome, hearty, vaunted, gay. 
Wintle, a staggering motion ; to stagger, to reel. 
Winze, an oath. 
Wiss, to wish. 
Withontttn, without. 
Wizen'd, hide bound, dried, shrunk. 
Wonner, a wonder ; a contemptuous appellation. 
Wons, dwells. 
Woo', wool. 

Woo, to court, to make love to. 
Woodie, a rope, more properly one made of withce 

or willows. 
Woorr-bab, the garter knotted below the knee with 

a couple of loops. 
Wordy, worthy. 
Worset, worsted. 

Wow, an exclamation of pleasure or wonder. 
Wrack, to teaze, to vex. 
Wraith, a spirit, or ghost ; an apparition exactly 

like a living person, whose appearance is st\id to 

forbode the person's approaching death. 



GLOSSARY. 



163 



TVran?, wrong ; to wrong. 
Wreetk, a drifted heap of enow. 
Wed-mad, distracted. 
Wumbie, a wimble. 
Wyle, to beguile. 
Wyliecoat, a flannel vest. 
Wyle, blame ; to blame. 



Y. 



YAD, an old mare ; a worn out horae. 

Ye; this pronoun is frequently used for thou 

Yearns, longs much. 

Yearlings, bom the same Tear co-«vali. 



Year is used both, for singular and plural jean. 

Yearn, earn, an ea^le, an ospray. 

Yell, barren, that gives no milk. 

Vork. to lash, to jerk. 

Yerkit, 'erked, lashed. 

Yestreen, yesternight. 

Yell, a gate such as is usually at the entrance into ft 

farm-yard or field. 
Yill, ale. 
Yird, earth. 
Yokin, yoking ; a bout. 
Yont, beyond. 
Yoursel, yourself 
Yowe, a ewe. 

Yowie, diminutive, of vow* 
Yule, O-.s \ 



CONTENTS. 



B1UGRAPH1CAL SKETCH of the Author, 
On the Death of Burn3, by Mr. Roscoe, 
Preface to the first Edition of Burns' Poems, 
published at Kilmarnock, ... 

Dedication of the Second Edition of the Poems 
formerly printed, To the Noblemen and Gen- 
tlemen of the Caledonian Hunt. 

POEMS, CHIEFLY SCOTTISH. 

The Twa Dogs, a Tale, 

Scotch Drink, - 

The Author's earnest Cry and Prayer to the 
Scotch Representatives in the House ot Com- 
mons, ...... 

Postscript, ..... 

The Holy Fair, 

Death and Dr Hornbook, - 

The Brigs of Ayr, a Poem inscribed to J. 
B****"****, Esq. Ayr, 

The Ordination, ..... 

The Calf. To the Rev. Mr. - 

Address to the Deil, - - - - 

The Death and Dying Words of Poor Mailie, 

Poor Malie's Elegy,- .... 

A Dream, .----- 

The Vision, - 

Address to the Unco Guid, or the Rigidly 
Righteous, - 

Tam Sampson's Elegy, - - - - 

The Epitaph, 

Halloween, - - . - - 

The Auld Farmer's New-Year's Morning Sal- 
utation to his Auld Mare Magpie, - 

To a Mouse, on turning up in her nest with 
the Plough, November, 1785, 

A Winter Night, .... 

Epistle to Davie, a Brother Poet, 

The Lament, occasioned by the unfortunate 
issue of a Friend's Amour, . - . 

Despondency, an Ode, ... 

Winter, a Dirge, .... 

The Cotter's Saturday Night, 

Man was made to Mourn, a Dirge, - 

A Prayer in the prospect of Death, 

Stanzas on the same occasion, 

Verses left by the Author, in the room where lie 
slept, having lain at the House of a Rever- 
end Friend, .... 

The First Psalm, - - - 

A Prayer, under the pressure of violent An- 
guish, ..... 

The first six verses of the Nineteenth Psalm, 

To a Mountain Daisy, on turning one down 
with the Plough, in April, 1786, 

To Ruin, 

To Miss L , with Beattie's Poems as a 

New Year's Gift, Jan. 1, 1787, 

Epistle to a Young Friend, 

On a Scotch Bard, gone to the West Indies, 

To a Haggis, . . - - 

A Dedication to Gavin Hamilton, Esq. 

To a Louse, on seeing one on a Lady's Bonnet 
at Church, ..... 

Address to Edinburgh, 

Epistle to J. Lapraik, an old Scottish Bard, 

To the same, .... 

To W. S**"*n, Ochiltree, May, 1785, 

Postscript, ..... 

Epistle to J. R******, enclosing some Poems, 



Page. 
Ill 
VII 



John Barleycorn, a Ballad, - 59 

Written in" Friars-Carse Hermitage, on Nith- 
Side, 64 

Ode, sacred to the memory of Mrs. — — , of 
, . . . .65 

Eleev on Capt. Matthew Henderson, - ib. 

The" Epitaph, - ... 66 

To Robert Graham, Esq. of Fintra, - 67 

Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn, - 68 

Lines sent to Sir John Whitefoord, of White- 
foord, Bart, with the foregoing Poern, - 69 

TamO' Shanter, a Tale, - - - ib. 

On seeing a wounded Hare limp by me, which 
a fellow had just shot at, ... 71 

Address to the Shade of Thomson, on crown- 
ing his bust at Ednam, Roxburghshire, with 
Bays, ----- ib. 

Epitaph on a celebrated Ruling Elder, - ib. 

On a Noisy Polemic, - - - lib. 

On Wee Johnie, - - - ib. 

For the Author's Father, - - 72 

For R. A. Esq. ib. 

For G.H. Esq. - -' ib. 

A Bard's Epitaph. .... ib. 

On the late Captain Grose's Peregrinations 
through Scotland, collecting the Antiquities 
of that Kingdom, - - - - ib. 

To Miss Cruikshanks, a very young Lady. 
Written on the blank leaf of a Book, pre- 
sented to her by the Author, 73 

On reading in a Newspaper the Death of John 
M'Leod, Esq. Brother to a young Lady, a 
particular Friend of the Author's, - - 73 

The Humble Petition of Bruar Water to the 
Noble Duke of Athloe, - - - ib. 

On scaring some Water-Fowl in Loch-Turit, 74 

Written with a Pencil over the Chimney-piece, 
in the Parlour of the Inn at Kenraore, Tay- 
mouth, ..... 75 

Written with a Pencil, standing by the Fall o* 

Fyers, near Loch-Ness, - - - ib. 

On the Birth of a Posthumous Child, Borain 
peculiar Circumstances of Family Distress, ib. 

The Whistle, a Ballad, ... 76 

Second Epistle to Davie, 77 

Lines on an interview with Lord Daer, - 78 

On the Death of a Lap-Dog, named Echo, - 79 

Inscription to the Memory of Fergusson, - 80 

Epistle to R.Graham, Esq. - - - ib. 

Fragment, inscribed to the Right Honourable 

C.J. Fox, .... 81 

To Dr. Blacklock, - - - ib. 

Prologue, spoken at the Theatre Ellisland, on 
New-Year's-Day Evening, - 82 

Elegy on the late Miss Burnet, of Monboddo, ib. 

The Rights of Woman, 83 

Address, spoken by Miss Fontenelle, on her 
Benefit Night, Dec. 4, 1795, at the Theatre, 
Dumfries, ----- ib. 

Verses to a young Lady, with a present of 
Songs, 63 

Lines written on a blank leaf of a copy of his 
Poems presented to a young Lady, - 101 

Copy of a Poetical Address to Mr. William 

Tytler, 113 

Caledonia, ... ib. 

Poem written to a Gentleman who had sent 
him a Newspaper, and offered to continue it 
free of expense, - - ib. 

Poem on Pastoral Poetry, - - - 114 

Sketch— New Year's Day, - - .115 

Extempore, on the late Mr. William Smellie, ib 



166 



CONTENTS. 



Poetical Inscription for an Altai- to Independ- 

Sonnet', on the Death of Robert Riddel, Esq. 
Monody on a Lady famed tor her caprice, 
The Epitaph, - 

Answer to a mandate sent by the Surveyor of 
the Windows, Carriages, &c. 

Impromptu, on Mrs. 's Birth-day, - 

To a young Lady, Miss lessy , Dumfries ; 

with Books which the Bard presented her, 

Sonnet, written on the 25th of January, 1793, 

the Birth-day of the Author, on hearing a 

Thrush sing in a morning walk, 

Extempore, to Mr. S'*e, on refusing to dine 

with him, - 
To Mr. S"*e, with a present of a dozen of por- 
ter, 



Page. 

115 
ib. 
116 
to. 



Page. 

Again rejoicing nature sees, 62 

A Highland lad ray love was born, - -ISO 

Altho' my bed were in yon muir, • - 137 

Amang the trees where humming bees, - ib. 

An O, for ane and twenty, Tam 1 108 

Ance mair 1 hail thee, thou gloomy December ! 110 
Anna, thy charms my bosom file, - -73 

A rose-bud by my early walk, - - 104 

cam in by our gate-end, ... 140 
As I stood by yon roofless tower, - - 112 

As I was a-wandering ae morning in spring, 138 
Awa wi' your witchcraft o' beauty's alarms, 102 



ib. 



Poem, addressed to Mr. Mitchell, collector of 

Excise, Dumfries, 1796, 
Sent to a gentleman whom he had offended, 
Poem on Life, addressed to Col. De 1'eyster, 
Dumfries, ..---- 
Address to the Tooth-ach, ... 

To Robert Graham, Esq. of Fintry, on receiv- 
ing a favour, .... 
Epitapli on a Friend, - 
A Grace before Dinner, ... 

On Sensibility. Addressed to Mrs. Dunlop, 
ofDunlop, - - - - 

A Verse. When Death's dark stream I ferry 
o'er. ..... 

Verses written at Selkirk, ... 

Liberty, a Fragment, ... 

Elegy on the death of Robert Ruisseaux, 

The loyal Natives' Verses, ... 

Burns — Extempore, - 

To J. Lapraik, - 

To the Rev. John M'Math, enclosing a copy 
of Holy Willie's Prayer, which he had re- 
quested, - 

To Gavin Hamilton, Esq. Mauchlind, recom- 
mending a Boy, - 

To Mr. M' Adam, of Craieeu-Gillan, 

To Oapt. Riddel, Glenriddel, 

To Terraughty, on his Birth-day, - _ - 

To a Lady, with a present of a pair of driuk- 
ing-glasses, .... 

The Vowels, a Tale, - - - 

Sketch, - 

Scots Prologue, for Mr. Sutherland's Benefit, 

Extemporaneous Effusion on being appointed 
to the Excise, - 

On seeing the beautiful seat of Lord G. 

On the same, ... 

On the same, .... 

To the same on the Author being threatened 
with his resentment, 

The Dean of Faculty, 

Extempore in the Court of Session, 

Verses to J. Ranken, ... 

On hearing that there was falsehood in the Rev. 
Dr. B 's very looks, - - - 189 

On a Schoolmaster in Cleiih Tarish, Fifeshire, ib. 

Elegy on the Vear 1788, a Sketch, - - ib. 

Verses written under the Portrait of Fergus- 
son, the Poet. - - - ib. 

TheGuidwifeof Wauchope house to Robert Burns, 138 

The Answer, - - - - 139 

The Kirk's Alarm, A Satire, ... 144 

The twa Herds, .... ^145 

Epistle from a Taylor to Robert Burns, - 146 

The Answer, ----- ib. 

Letter to John Goudie, Kilmarnock, on the 
publication of liis Essays - - - 147 

Letter to J— s T 1 Gl nc r, - ib. 

On the Death of Sir James Hunter Blair - 148 

TheJolly Beggars, a Cantata. . . 149 



SONGS. 

A. 
Adieu ! a heart -warm, fond adieu ! 



ib. 



119 



Behind yon hills where Lugar flows, 

Behold the hojr, the boat arrive, 

Beyond thee, dearie, beyond thee, dearie, 

Blithe, blithe and merry was she, 

Blithe hae I been on yon hill, - 

Bonnie lassie will ye go, 

Bonnie wee thing, cannie wee thing, 

But lately seen in gladsome green, 

By Allan stream 1 chanced to rove, 

By yon castle wa', at the close of the day, 

C. 

Ca' the yowes to the knowes, - 
Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy ? 
Clarinda, mistress of my soul, 
Come, let me take thee to my breast, - 
Comin thro' the rye, poor body, 
Contented wi' little, and cantie wi' mair, 
Could auglu of song declare my pains, 



Deluded swain, the pleasure, • 
Does haughty Gaul invasion threat ? 
Duncan Gray came here to woo, 



Adown winding Nilh I did wander, 
Ae fond kiss and then we 6ever, 



F. 



Fair the face of orient day, ... 

Fairest maid on Devon banks, 

Farewell, thou fair day, thou green earth, and 

ye skies, ..... 

Farewell thou stream that winding flows, 
Farewell, ye dungeons dark and strong, 
Fate gave the word, the arrow sped, 
First when Maggie was my care, 
Flow gently, sweet Alton, among thy green 

braes, ..... 

Forlorn, my love, no comfort near, 
From thee, Eliza, 1 must go, - 



Gane is the day, and mirk's the night, 
Go fetch to me a pint o' wine. - 

Green grows tlie rashes Ol 



Had I a cave on some wild distant shore. 

Here awa, there awa, wandering Willie, 

Here's a bottle and an honest friend, 

Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear, 

Here's a health to them that's awa, - 

Here is the glen, and here the bower, 

Her flowing locks, the raven's*wing, - 

How can my poor heart be glad, 

How cruel are the parents, 

How long and dreary is the night, 

How pleasant the banks of the clear winding 

Devon, .... 

Husband, husband, cea*e your strife, 



CONTENTS. 



167 



lama bard of no regard, 

I am a fiddler to my trade, 

1 am a son of Mar3, 

I do confess thou art so fair, 

I dream'd I lay where flowers were springing 

I gaed a waefu' gate yestreen - 

I hae a wife o' my ain, - 

I'll ay ca' in by yon town, 

I'll kiss thee yet, yet, - ... 

In simmer when the hay was mawn, 

I once was a maid tho' I cannot tell when 

Is there for honest poverty, 

It was upon a Lammas night, - 

It was the charming month of May, 



Jockey's ta'en the parting kiss, 
John Anderson my jo, John, 



Cen ye ought o' Captain Grose ? 

L. 

Lassie wi' the lint- white locks, 

Last May a braw wooer cam down the lang 

glen, 
Let me rike up to delight that tear, 
Let not woman e'er complain, 
Long, long the night, 
Loud blaw the frosty breezes, 
Louis, what reck I by thee, 



M. 



Mark yonder pomp of costly fashion, 

Musing on the roaring ocean, - 

My bonny lass, I work in brass, 

My Chloris, mark how green the groves, 

My father was a farmer upon the Carrick bor 

derO, 
My heart is a-breaking, dear Tittie, - 
My heart's in the Highland's, my heart is not 

here, .... 

My heart is sair, I dare na tell, 
Mv lady's gown there's gairs upon't, 
My Peggy's face, my Peggy's form, 



Page 



N. 



NTae Gentle dames, tho' e'er sae fair, 
No churchman am I for to rail and to write, - 
Now bank and brae are claith'd in green, 
Now in her green mantle blithe nature arrays, 
Now nature hangs her mantle green, 
Now rosy May comes in wi' flowers, 
Now spriiig has cloth'd the groves in green, 
Now weslin winds and slaughtering guns, 

O. 

O ay my wife she dang me, 

O bonnie was yon rosy brier, 

O cam ye here the fight to shun, 

Of a' the airts the wind can blaw, 

O gin my love were yon red rose, 

O guid ale comes, and guid ale goes, - 

O how can I be blithe and glad, 

Oh, open the door, some pity to show, 

Oh, wert thou in the cavild blast, 

O ken ye wha Meg o' the Mill has gotten, 

O lassie, art thou' sleepin yet? 

O leave novels, ye Mauchiine belles, • 



Page. 

O leeze me on my spinning wheel, « - 10a 

O Logan, sweetly didst thou glide, ■• ♦ 88 

O lovely Polly Stewart, - • - 140 
O luve will venture in, where it daur na weel 

be seen, .... - 109 

O Mary, at thy window be, - - - 86 

G May, thy morn was ne'er sae sweet, - 112 

O rneikle thinks my luve o' my beauty, - 107 

mirk, mirk is (he midnight hour, - - 86 

my luve's like a red, red rose, - - 112 

On a bank of flowers, one summer's day, - 142 

On Cessnock banks there lives a lass, - 135 

One night as I did wander, - - - - 137 

O, once I lov'd a bonny lass, - - 79 

O Fhilly, happy be the day, 97 

O poor'tith cauld, and restless love, - -86 

O raging fortune's withering blast, • - 138 

O saw ye bonnie Lesley, 84 

O saw ye my dear, my I hely ? - - 95 

O stay, sweet warbling wood-lark, stay, - 99 

O tell na me o' wind and rain, 99 

O, this is no my ain lassie, ... 100 

O Tibbie, I hae seen the day, - - 104 

Out over the Forth I look to the north, - 134 

O, wat ye wha'sin yon town, - - 112 

O, were I on Parnassus' hill! - - 105 

O wha is she that lo'es me, • - 119 

O wha my babie-clouts will buy ? - . 131 

O Whistie, and I'll come to you, my lad, - 90 

O, Willie brew'd a peck o' maut, - - 106 

O wilt thou go wi' me, sweet Tibbie Dunbar, 140 

O why the deuce should I repine, ■ • 152 

P. 

Powers celestial, whose protection, • • 136 



Raving winds around her blowing, • - 103 

Robin shure in hairst, .... 140 



Sae flaxen were her ringlets, . - 94 

Scenes of wo and scenes of pleasure, - • 121 

Scots wha ha wi' Wallace bled, 92 

See the smoking bowl before us, - . 152 

She's fair and fause that causes my smart, . 110 

She is a winsome wee thing 84 

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, - - 92 

S:r Wisdom's a fool when he's fou, - 150 

Sleep's! thou, or wak'st thou, fairest creature, 95 
Slow spreads the gloom my soul desires, 
Stay my charmer, can you leave me ? 
Streams that glide in orient plains, - 
Sweet fa's the eve on Craigie-burn, • 



The bairns gat out wi' an unco shout, - 141 

The Catrine woods were yellow seen, - 106 

The day returns, my bosom burns, - . 105 

The deil cam fiddling tho' the town, - - 136 

The gloomy night is gath'ring fast, - - 63 
The heather was blooming, the meadows were 

m3wn, .-...«! 135 
The lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill, 105 
The lovely lass o' Inverness, . - HI 
The small birds rejoice in the green leaves re- 
turning, .... go 

The smiling spring comes in rejoicing, . . Ill 

The Thames flows proudly to the sea, - J06 

The winter it is past, and the simmer comes 138 

at last, ...... 90 

Their groves o' sweet myrtle let foreign lands 85 

reckon, .... 130 

There's auld Rob Morris that wons in yon 86 

glen. 85 
There's a youth in this city, it were a great 

pity, ... 130 



168 



CONTENTS. 



There's braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes, 

There was a bonnie lass, and a bonnie, bonnie 

lass, ...... 

There was alad was born at Kyle, 

There was a lass and she was fair, 

There were five carlins in the South, 

Thickest night o'erhang my dwelling ! - 

Thine am I, my faithful fair, 

Tho' cruel fate should bid ua part, 

Thou hast left me ever, Jamie, 

Thou lingering star, with less'ning ray - 

To thee, lov'd Nith, thy gladsome plains, 

True heatred was lie, the sad swain of Yarrow. 

Turn again, thou fair Eliza, 

Twas even, the dewy fields were green, 

Twas na her bonnie blue e'e was my ruin 



Up in the morning's no for me, * 

W. 

Wae is my heart and the tear's in my e'e, 
Wee Willie Gray, and his leathen wallet J 
Wha is this at my bower door? • 



Page 



Page» 

What can a young lassie, what shall a young 

lassie, ....... 107 

When first I came to Stewart Kyle, - - 137 

When Guilford good our pilot stood, 60 

When o'er the hill the eastern star, 84 

When January winds were blawing cauld, - 143 

When wild war's deadly blast was blawn, - 87 

Where are the joys 1 hae met in the morning, 92 

Where braving angry winter's storms, - 104 

Where Cartrins rowin to the sea, - - 111 

While larks, with little wing, 89 

Why, why tell thy lover, .... 102 

Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary. 84 

Willie Wastledwalt on Tweed, ... 109 

Wilt thou be my dearie? .... 93 



Ye banks and braes, and streams around, 85 

Y"e banks and braes o' bonnie Doon, - • 109 

Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon, - . it>. 

Ye gallants bright I red you right, - . ISO 

Yestreen I had a pint o' wine, ... 135 

Yon wand'ring rill, that marks the hill, - 139 

Yon wild mossy mountains, ... 132 

Young Jockey was the blithest lad, • . 134 

Young Peggy blooms our bonniest lass, . 136 

You're welcome to Despots, Dumourier. • 1*9 



THE LIFE 

OF 

ROBERT BURNS, 

WITH 

HIS GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE ? 

ALSO 

CRITICISM ON HIS WRITINGS 

AND 

OBSERVATIONS ON THE SCOTTISH PEASANTRY. 
BY DR. 0URB1E 



DR. CURRID'S DEDICATION. 



TO 



5Al®Alit QBAlDfflSK ffi®«@» 

OF THE ROYAL NAVY. 



WHEN you were stationed on our coast about 
twelve years ago, you first recommended to my par- 
ticular notice the poems of the Ayrshire ploughman, 
whose works, published for the benefit of his widow 
and children, I now present to you. In a distant re- 
gion of the world, whither the service of your country 
has carried you, you will, I know, receive with kind- 
ness this proof of my regard ; not perhaps without 
some surprise on finding that I have been engaged in 
editing these volumes, nor without some curiosity to 
know how I was qualified for such an undertaking. 
These points I will briefly explain. 

Having occasion to make an excursion to the county 
of Dumfries, inthe summer of 1792, I had there an op- 
portunity of seeing and conversing with Burns. It has 
been my fortune toknow some men of high reputation 
in literature, as well as in public life ; but never to 
meet any one who, in the course of a single interview, 
communicated to me so strong an impression of the 
force and versatility of his talents. After this I read 
the poems then published with greater interest and at- 
tention, and with a full conviction that, extraordinary 
as they are, they afford but an inadequate proof of the 
powers of their unfortunate author. 

Four years afterwards, Burns terminated his career. 
Among those whom the charms of his genius had at- 
tached to him, was one with whom I haVe been bound 
in the ties of friendship from early life— Mr. John 
Syme of Ryedale. This gentleman, after the death of 
Burns, promoted with the utmost zeal a subscription 
for the support of the widow and children, to which 
their relief from immediate distress is to be ascribed ; 
and in conjunction with other friends of this virtuous 
and destitute family projected the publications of these 
volumes for their benefit, by which the return of want 
might be prevented or prolonged. 

To this last undertaking an editor and biographer 
was wanting, and Mr. Syme's modesty opposed a bar- 
rier to his assumi-ig an office, for which he wasin other 
respects peculiarly qualified. On this subject he con- 
sulted me ! and with the hope of surmounting his ob- 
jections, I offered him my assistance, but in vain. En- 
deavours were used to procure an editor in other quar- 
ters but without effect. The task was beset with con- 
siderable difficulties, and men of established reputation 
naturally declined an undertaking to the performance 
of which, it was scarcely to be hoped that general ap- 
probation could be obtained by an exertion of judg- 
ment or temper 

To such an office, my place of residence, my accus- 
tomed studies, and my occupations, were certainly 
tittle suited: but the partiality of Mr. Syme thought 
me in other respects not unqualified ; and his solicita- 
tions, joined to those of our excellent frigid and rela- 
tion, Mrs. Dunlop, and of other friends of the family 
of the poet, I have not been able to resist. To remove 
(JifficultieB which would otherwise have been insur- 



mountable, Mr. Syme and Mr. Gilbert Burns made a 
journey to Liverpool, where they explained and ar- 
ranged the manuscripts, and selected such as seemed 
worthy of the press. From this visit I derived a de- 
gree of pleasure which has compensated much of my la- 
bour. I had the satisfaction of renewing my personal 
intercourse with a much valued friend, and of forming 
an acquaintance with a man, closely allied to Burns in 
talents as well as in blood, in whose future fortunes 
the friends of virtue will not, I trust, be uninterested. 

The publication of these volumes has been delayed 
by obstacles which these gentlemen could neither re- 
move nor foresee, and which it would be tedious to 
enumerate. At length the task is finished. If the part 
which I have taken shall serve the interest of the fami- 
ly, and receive the approbation of good men, I shall 
have my recompense. The errors into which I have 
fallen are not, I hope, very important, and they will 
be easily accounted for by those who know the circum- 
stances under which this undertaking haj been per- 
formed. Generous minds will receive the posthumous 
works of Burns with candour, and even partiality, as 
the remains of an unfortunate man of genius, publish- 
ed for the benefit of his family— as the stay of the wid- 
ow and the hope of the fatherless. 

To secure the suffrages of such minds, all topics are 
omitted in the wrilings,and avoided in the life of Burns, 
that have a tendency to awaken the animosity of party. 
In perusing the following volumes no offence will be 
received, except by those to whom even the natural 
erect aspect ot genius is offensive ; characters that: will 
scarcely be found among those who are educated to 
the profession of arms. Such men do not court situa- 
tions oi danger, or tread in tiie paths of glory. They 
will not be found in your sevice, which, in our own 
days, emulates on another element the superior fame 
of the Macedonian phalanx, or of the Roman legion, 
and which has, lately made the shores of Eurofe and 
Africa resound with the shouts of victory, from Texel 
to the Tagus, and from the Tagus to the Nile ! 

The works of Burns will be received favourably by 
one who stands in the foremost rank of this noble ser- 
vice, and who deserves his station. On the land or 
on the sea, I know no man more capable of judging of 
the character or of the writings of this original genius. 
Homer, and Shakspeare, and Ossian, cannot always 
occupy your leisure. These volumes may sometimes 
engage your attention, while the steady breezes of the 
tropic swell your sails, and in another quarter of the 
earth charm you with the strains of nature, or awake 
in your memory the scenes of your early days. Suffer 
me to hope that they may sometimes recall to your 
mind the friend who addresses you, and who bids you 
—most affectionately — adieu 1 



J. CURRIE. 



Liverpool, 1st Mmi 



PREFATORY REMARKS 



TO THE LIFE 



ROBERT BURNS 



THOUGH the dialect in which many of the hap- 
piest effusions of Robert Burns are composed he pecu- 
liar to Scotland, yet his reputation has extended itself 
heyond the limits of that country, and his poetry has 
been admired as the offspring of original genius, by 
persons of taste in every part of the sister islands. The 
interest excited by his early death, and the distress of 
his infant family, have been felt in a remarkable man- 
ner wherever his writings have been known : and 
these posthumous volumes, which give to the world his 
works complete, and which, it is hoped, may raise his 
widow and children from penury, are printed and pub- 
lished in England. It seems proper, therefore, to write 
the memoirs of his life, not with the view of their being 
read by Scotchmen only, but also by natives of England, 
and of other countries where the English language is 
spoken or understood. 



Robert Burns was, in reality, what he lias been rep- 
resented to be, a Scottish peasant. To render the in- 
cidents of his humble story generally intelligible, it 
seems therefore, advisable to prefix some observations 
on the character and situation of the order to which 
he belonged — a class of men distinguished by many pe- 
culiarities : by this means we shall form a more cor- 
rect notion of the advantages with which he started, 
and of the obstacles which he surmounted. A few ob- 
servations on the Scottish peasantry will not, perhaps, 
be found unworthy of attention in other respects ; and 
the subject is, in a great measure, new. Scotland has 
produced persons of high distinction in every branch 
of philosophy and literature ; and her history, while a 
separate and independent nation, has been success- 
fully explored. But the present character of the people 
was not then formed ; the nation then presented fea- 
tures similar to those which the feudal system of the 
catholic religion had diffused over Europe, modified, 
indeed, by the peculiar nature other territory and cli- 
mate. The Reformation, by which such important 
changes were produced on the national character, was 
speedily followed by the accession of the Scottish 
monarchs to the English throne ; and the period which 
elapsed from that accession to the Union, has been 
rendered memorable, chiefly, by those bloody convul- 
sions in which both divisions of the island were in- 
volved, and which, in a considerable degree, concealed 
from the eye of the historian the domestic history of the 
people, and the gradual variations in their condition 
and manners. Since the Union, Scotland, though the 
seat of two unsuccessful attempts to restore the [louse 
of Stuart lo the vhrone, has enjoyed a comparative 
tranquility ; and it :s since this period that the present 
character of her peasantry has been in a great measure 
formed, though the political causes affecting it are to 
be traced to the previous acts of her separate legisla- 
ture. 



A slight acquaintance with the peasanty of Scotland 
will serve to convince an unprejudiced observer, that 
they possess a degree of intelligence not generally 
found among the same class of men in the other coun- 
tries of Europe. In the very humblest condition of the 
Scu'.tish peasants, every one can read, and most per- 



sons are more or less skilled in writing and arithmetic ; 
and, under the disguise of their uncouth appearance, 
and of their peculiar manners and dialect, a stranger 
will discover that they possess a curiosity, and have 
obtained a degree of information, corresponding to 
these acquirements. 

, These advantages they owe to the legal provision 
made by the parliament of Scotland in 1646, for the 
establishment of a school in every parish throughout 
the kingdom, for the express purpose of educating th« 
poor : a law which may challenge comparison with 
any act of legislation to be found in the records of his- 
tory, whether we consider the wisdom of the ends in 
view, the simplicity of the means employed, or the pro- 
visions made to render these meau3 effectual to their 
purpose. This excellent statute was repealed on the 
accession of Charles II. in 1660, together with all the 
other laws passed during the commonwealth, as not 
beingsanctionedby the royal assent. It slept during the 
reigns of Charles and James, but was re-enacted, pre- 
cisely in the same terms, by the Scottish parliament 
after the revolution, in 1696 ; and this is the last pro- 
vision on the subjOt. Its effects on the national cha- 
racter may be considered to have commenced about 
the period of the Union ; and doubtless it co-operated 
with the peace and security arising from that happy 
event, in producing the extraordinary change in favour 
of industry and good morals, which the character of 
the common people of Scotland has since undergone.* 

The church establishment of Scotland happily coin- 
cides with the institutions just mentioned, which may 
be called its school establishment. The clergymen 
being every where resident in his particular parish, 
becomes the natural patron and superintendent of the 
parish school, and is enabled in various ways to pro- 
mote the comfort of the teacher, and the proficiency of 
the scholars. The teacher himself is often a candidate 
for holy orders, who, during the long course of study 
and probation required in the Scottish church, renders 
the time which can be spared from his professional 
studies, useful to others as well as to himself, by as- 
suming the respectable character of a schoolmaster. It 
is common for the established schools, even in the 
country parishes of Scotland, to enjoy the means of 
classical instruction ; and many of the farmers, and 
some even of the cottagers, submit to much privation, 
that they may obtain for one of their sons at least, the 
precarious advantage of a learned education. The 
difficulty to be surmounted arises, indeed, not from 
the expense of instructing their children, but from the 
charge of supporting them. In the country parish 
schools, the English language, writing, and accounts, 
are generally taught at the rate of six shillings, and 
Latin at the rate of ten or twelve shillings per annum. 
In the towns the prices are somewhat higher. 

It would be improper in this place to inquire minutely 
into the degree of instruction received in these semi- 

• See Appendix, No. I. Note. A. 



PREFATORY REMARKS. 



«aries, or to attempt any precise estimate of its effects, 
either on the individuals who are the subjects of this 
instruction, or on the community to which they belong. 
That it is on the whole favourable to industry and 
morals, though doubtless with some individual excep- 
tions, seems to be proved by the most striking and de- 
cisive appearance ; and it is equally clear, that it is the 
cause of that spirit of emigration and of adventure so 
prevalent among the Scotch. Knowledge has, by Lord 
Verulam, been denominated power ; by others it has 
with less propriety been denominated virtue or happi- 
ness : we may with confidence consider it as motion. 
A human being, .in pioportion as be is informed, has 
nis wishes enlarged, as well as the means of gratifying 
those wishes. He may be considered as taking within 
the sphere of his vision a large portion of the globe on 
which we tread, and discovering advantage ata great- 
er distance on its surface. His desires or ambition, 
once excited, are stimulated by his imagination ; and 
distant and uncertain objects, giving freer scope to the 
operation of this faculty, often acquire, in the mind of 
the youthful adventurer, on attraction from their very 
distance and uncertainty. If, therefore, a greater de- 
gree of instruction be given to the peasantry of a conn 
try comparatively poor, in the neighbourhood of other 
countries rich in natural and acquired advantages ; 
and if the barriers be removed that kept them sepa- 
rate, emigration from the former to the latter will take 
place to a certain extent, by laws nearly as uniform as 
those by which heat diffuses itself among surrounding 
bodies, or water finds its level when left to its natural 
course. By the articles of the Union, the hairier was 
broken down which divided the two British nation?, 
and knowledge and poverty poured the adventurous 
natives of the north over the fertile plains of England ; 
and more especially, over the colonies which she had 
settled in the east and west. The stream o population 
continues to flow from the north tp the south ; for the 
causes that originally impelled it continue to operate ; 
and the richer country is constantly invigorated by the 
accession of an informed and hardy race of men, edu 
cated in poverty, and prepared for hardship and dan- 
ger; patient of labour, and prodigal of life." 

The preachers of '.he Reformation in Scotland were 
disciples of < 'alvin, and hi ought with them the temper 
as well as the tenets of that celel . atnl heresiarch. 
The presbyterian form of worship and of church gov- 
ernment was endeared to the people, from its being 
established by themselves. It was endeared to them, 
also, by the struggle it hail to maintain with the I 'ath- 
olic and the Protestant episcopal churches; over both 
ofwhich.aftera hundred years of fierce and sometimes 
bloody contention, it finally triumphed, receiving the 
countenance of government, and the sanction of law. 
During this long period of contention and suffering, the 
temper of the people became more and more obstinate 
and bigoted : and the nation received that deep tinge 
of fanaticism which coloured their public transactions, 
as well as their private virtues, in our own times. 
When the public schools were established, the instruc- 
tion communicated in them partook of the religious 
character of the people. The Catechism of the 
Westminster Divines was the universal school-book, 
and was put into the hands of the young peasant as 
noon as he had acquired a knowledge of his alphabet ; 
and his first exercise in the art of reading introduced 
him to the most mysterious doctrines of the Christian 
faith. This practice is continued in our own times. 
Afte-the Assembly's Catechism, 'I>h Proverbs ol Solo- 
mon, and the New and Old Testament, follow in regu- 
lar succession ; and the scholar departs, gifted with 
the knowledge of the sacred writings, and receiving 
their doctrines according to '.he interpretation of the 
Westminster Confession of Faith. Thus, with tin- 
instruction of infancy in the schools of Scotland are 
blended the dogmas of the national chinch ; and hence 
the first and most constant exercise of ingi unity among 
the peasantry of Scotland is displayed in religious dis- 
putation. With a strong attachment to the national 
creed, is conjoined a bigoted preference to certain forms 
of worship ; the source of which would be often alto- 
gether obscure, if we did not recollect that the cere- 



See Appendix, No. I. Note B. 



monies of the Scottish Church were framed in airect 
opposition, in every point, to those ol the church of 
Rome. 

The eccentricities of conduct, and singularities *i 
opinion and manners, which characterised the Eng- 
lish sectaries in the >ast century, afforded a subject for 
the comic muse of Butler, whose pictures lose their 
interest, since their archetypes are lost. Some of the 
peculiarities common among the more rigid disciples 
of Calvinism in Scotland, in the present times, have 
given scope to the ridicule of Bums, whose humour is 
equal to Butler's, and whose drawings from living 
maimers are singularly expressive and exact. Un- 
fortunately the correctness of his taste did not always 
correspond with the strength of his genius ; and hence 
some of the most exquisite of his comic productions 
are rendered unfit for the light.* 

The information and the Religious education of the 
peasantry of Scotland, promote seduteness of conduct, 
and habits of thought and reflection. These good 
qualities are not counteracted, by the establishment of 
poor laws, which while they reflect credit on the Ve- 
nevolence, detract from the wisdom of the English 
legislature. To make a legal provision for the inevita- 
ble distresses of the poor, who by age or disease are 
rendered incapable of labour, may indeed seem an in- 
dispensable duty of society ; and if, in the execution ol 
apian for this purpose, a distinction could be intro- 
duced, so as to exclude from its benefits those whose 
sufferings are produced by idleness or profligacy, such 
an institution would perhaps be as rational as humane. 
But to lay a general tax on property for the support 01 
poverty, from whatever cause proceeding, is a mea- 
sure full of danger. It must operate in a considerable 
degree as an incitement to idleness, and a discourage- 
ment to industry. It takes away from vice and indo- 
lence the prospect of their most dreaded consequences. 
and from virtue and industry their peculiar sanc- 
tions. In many cases it must render the rise in the 
price of labour, not a blessing but a curse to the la- 
bourer ; who, it there be an excess in what he earns 
beyond his immediate necessities, may be expected to 
devote this excess to his present gratification; trust- 
ing to the provision made by law for his own and his 
family's support, should disease suspend, or death 
terminate Ins labours. Happily, ill Scotland, the same 
hgislalure which established a system of instruction 
for the poor, resisted the introduction of a legal pro- 
vision for the support of poverty ; the establishment of 
the first, and the rejection of the last, were equally fa- 
vouraole to industry and good morals ; and hence it 
will not appear surprising, if the Scottish peasantry 
have a more than usual share of prudence and re- 
flection, if they approach nearer than persons of their 
order usually do, to the definition of a man, that of" a 
being that looks before and after." These observa 
tions must indeed be taken with many exceptions : the 
favourable operation of the causes just mentioned is 
counteracted by others of an opposite tendency; and 
the siil.jrrt iifully examined, would lead to discussioni! 
of great extent. 

When the Reformation wp.s established in Scotland, 
instrumental music was banished from the churches, 
as savouring too much of "profane minstrelsy." In- 
stead of bring regulated by an instrument, the voices 
of the congregation are led and directed by a person 
under the name of preceptor ; and the people are all 
expected to Join in the tune which he chooses for the 
psalm which is lobe sung. Church music is therefore 
a part of the education of the peasantry of Scotland, 
in which they are usually instructed in the long winter 
nights by the parish, schoolmaster, who i3 generally 
the preceptor, or by itinerant teachers more or le?s 
celebrated for their powers of voice. This branch ot 
education had, in the last reign fallen into some neg- 
lect, but was revived about thirty or forty years ago, 
when the music itself was reformed and improved. 
The Scottish system of psalmody is, however, radical- 

• Holy Willie's Prayer; Rob the Rhymer's Wei- 
I ccme to his Bastard Child ; Epistle to J. tiowdie ; the 
| Holy Tul/.ie &c. 



PREFATORY REMARKS. 



»ybad. Destitute of taste or harmony, it forms a a perfect knowledge of the human heart, and breathe a 
linking contrast with the delicacy and pathos of the , spirit of affection, and sometimes of delicate and ro- 



prolane airs. Our poet, it will be found, was taught 
church-music, in which, however, he made little pro- 
ficiency. 

That dancing shculd also be very generally a part 
of the education of the Scottish peasantry, will sur- 
prise those who have only seen this description of men : 
and still more those who reflect Oil the rigid spirit of 
Calvinism Willi which tin: n i lion is so deeply alfecled, 
and to which this recreation s so strongly abhorrent. 
The winter is also the season when they acquire dan- 
cing, and indeed almost all the other instruction. 
They are taught to dance by persons generally ol their 
own Dumber, many of whom work at daily labour 
during the summer months. The school is usually a 
barn, and the arena for the performers is generally a 
day floor. The dome is lighted by candles stuck in 
one end of a cloven stick, the other end of which is 
thrust into the wall. Heels, strathspeys, country- 
dances, and hornpipes, are here practised. The jig 
80 much ill favour among the Kiudish peasantry, has 
no place among them. The attachment of the people 
of Scotland Of every rank, and particularly of the 
peasantry, to this amusement, is very great. After 
the labours of the day are over, young men and wo- 
men walk many miles, :u the cold and dreary nights of 
winter, to these country dancing-schools ; and the in- 
atant that the violin sounds a Scottish air, fatigue seems 
to vanish, the toil-bent rustic becomes erect, his fea- 
tures brighten with sympathy ; every nerve seems to 
thrill with sensation, and every artery to vibrate with 
life. These rustic performers are indeed less to be 
admired for grace, than for agility and animation, and 
their accurate observance of time. Their modes of 
dancing, as well as their tunes, are common to every 
rank in Scotland, and are now generally known. In 
our own day they have penetrated into England, and 
hive established themselves even in the circle of royal- 
ty. In another generatiou they will be naturalized in 
every part of the island. 

The prevalence of this taste, or rather passion for 
dancing, among a people so deeply tinctured with the 
spirit and doctrines of Calvin, is one of those contra- 
dictions which the philosophic observer so often finds 
in national character and manners. It is probably to 
be ascribed to the Scottish music, which throughout 
all its varieties, is so full of sensibility ; and which, in 
its livelier strains, awakes those vivid emotions that 
find in dancing their natural solace and relief. 

This triumph of the music of Scotland over the spir- 
it of the established religion, has not, however, been 

obtained without long continued and obstinate strug- 
gles. The numerous sectaries who dissent from the 
establishment on account of the relaxation which they 
perceive, or think they perceive, in the church, from 
her original doctrines and diciphne, universally con- 
demn the practice of dancing, and the schools where it 
is taught ; and the more elderly and serious part of the 
people, of every persuasion, tolerate rather than ap- 
prove these mee'.ings of the young of both sexes, where 
dancing is practised to their spirit-stirring music, 
where care i3 dispelled, toil is forgotten, and prudence 
itself is sometimes lulled to sleep. 

The Reformation, which proved fatal to the rise of 
the other fine arts in Scotland, probably impeded, but 
could not obztruct the progress of its music : a cir 
cumstance that will convince the impartial inquirer, 
that this music not only existed previously to that (era", 
but had taken a firm hold of the nation ; thus affording 
a proof of its antiquity, stronger than any produced by 
the researches of our antiquaries. 

The impression which the Scottish rr.usic has made 
on the people, is deepened by its union with the nation- 
al songs, of which various collections of unequal 
merit are before the public. These songs, like those 
of other nations, are many of them humorous; but 
they chiefly treat of love, war, and drinking. Love is 
the subject of the greater portion. Without display- 
ing the higher powers of the imagination, they exhibit 



mautic tenderness, not to be surpassed in modern 
poetry, and which the more polished strains of antiqui- 
ty have seldom possessed. 

The origin of this amatory character in the rustic 
muse of Scotland, or of the greater number of these 
love-songs themselves, it would be difficult to trace; 
accumulated in the silent lapse of time, and 
il is now perhaps impossible to give an arrangement of 
them in the order of tiieir dale, valuable as such a 
recoi d of taste and manners would be. Their present 
influence on the character of the nation is, however, 
great and striking. To them we must attribute, in a 
ire, the romantic passion which so often 
characterizes the attachments of the humblest of the 
people ol Scotland to a degree, that if we mistake not, 
is seldom found in the same rank of society in othei 
countries. The pictures of love and happiness exhibited 
in their rural songs, are. early impressed on the mind of 
the peasant , and are rendered more attractive from the 
music with which they are united. They associate 
themselves with his own youthful emotions ; they ele- 
vate the object as well as the nature of his attachment ; 
and give to the impressions of sense the beautiful 
colours of imagination. Hence in the course of his 
passion, a Scottish peasant often exerts a spirit of ad- 
venture, of which a Spanish cavalier need not be 
ashamed. After the labours of the day are over, he 
sets out for the habitation of his mistress, perhaps at 
many miles distance, regardless of the length or the 
dreariness of the way. lie approaches her iusecresy, 
under the disguise of night. A signal at the door or 
Window, perhaps agreed on, and understood by none 
but her, gives information of his arrival ; and some- 
times it is repeated again and again, before the capri- 
cious lair one will obey the summons. But if she fa- 
vours Ins addresses, she escapes unobserved, and re- 
ceives the vows of her lover under the gloom of twilight, 
or the deeper shade of night. Interviews of this kind 
are the subjects of many of the Scottish songs, some of 
the most beautiful of which Uurus has imitated or im- 
proved. In the art which they celebrate he was per- 
fectly skilled ; he knew and had praeteed all its myste- 
ries. Intercourse of this sort is indeed universal even 
in the humblest condition ot man in every region of the 
earth. But it is not unnatural to suppose that it may 
exist in a greater degree, and in a mote romantic 
foim, among the peasnnry of a country who are sup- 
posed to be more than commonly instructed ; who find 
in their rural songs expressions for their youthful emo- 
ioiis : and in whom the embers of passion arecontinu* 
lly fanned by the breathings of a music full of lender- 
ess and sensibility. The direct influence of physical 
causes on the attachment between the sexes is com- 
paratively small, but it is modified by moral causes 
beyond any other affection of the mind. Of these, mu- 
sic and poetr^ are the chief. Among the snows of 
Lapland, and under the burning sun of Angola, the 
savage is seen hastening to his mistress, and every 
where he beguiles the weariness of his journey with 
poetry and song." 

In appreciating the happiness and virtue of a com- 
unity, there is perhaps no single criterion on which 
so much dependence may be placed, as the state of the 
intercourse between the sexes. Where this displays 
ardour of attachment, accompanied by purity of con- 
duct, the character and the influence of woman rise in 
society, our imperfect nature mounts in the scale of 
moral excellence ; and, from the source of this single 
affection, a stream of felicity descends, which branches 
into a thousand rivulets that enrich and adorn the 
field of life. Where the attachment between the sexes 
sinks into an appetite, the heritage of our species is 
comparatively poor, and man approaches the condition 
ofr/ie bratea that p.rUh. "If we could with safety 
indulge the pleasing supposition that Fingal lived and 

The North American Indians, among whom the 
attachment between the sexes are said to be weak, and 
love, in the purer sense of the word, unknown, seem 

ly unacquainted with the charms of poetry aud 

c. See Weld's Tour. 



8 



PREFATORY REMARKS. 



that Ossian sung,"* Scotland, judging from thiscrite- 
rion, might be considered as ranking high in happiness 
and virtue in very remote ages. To appreciate her 
situation by the same criterion, would be a delicate and 
difficult undertaking. After considering the proba- 
ble influence of her popular songs and her national 
music, and examining how far the effects to be ex- 
pected from these are supported by facts, the iuquirer 
would also have to examine the influence of other 
causes, and particularly of her civil and ecclesiastical 
institutions, by which the character, and even the man- 
ners of a people, though silently and slowly, are often 
powerfully controlled. In the point of view in which 
we are considering the subject, the ecclesiastical estab- 
lishments of Scotland may be supposed peculiarly fa- 
vourable to purity of conduct. The dissolute'ness of 
manners among the Catholic clergy, which proceeded, 
and in some measure produced the Reformation, led 
to an extraordinary strictness on the part of the re- 
formers, and especially in that particular in which the 
licentiousness of the clergy had been carried to its 
greatest height— the intercourse between the sexes. 
On this point, as on all others connected with austerity 
of manners, the disciples of Calvin assumed a greater 
severity than those of the Protestant episcopal church. 
The punishment of illicit connexion between the sexes, 
was throughout all Europe, a province which the clergy 
assumed to themselves; and the church of Scotland, 
which at the Reformation renounced so many powers 
and privileges, at that period took this crime under he? 
more especial jurisdiction. t When pregnancy takes 
place without marriage, the condition of the female 
causes the discovery, and it is on her, therefore, in the 
first instance, that the clergy and elders of the chinch 
exercise their zeal. After examination before the lurk- 
session, touching the circumstances of her guilt, she 
must endure a public penance, and sustain a public re- 
buke from the pulpit, for three Sabbaths.successively, 
in the face oi the congregation to which she belongs, 
and thus have her weakness exposed, and her shame 
blazoned. The sentence is the same with respect to 
the male; but how much lighter the punishment ! It 
is well known that this dreadful law, worthy the ir«t 
minds of Calvin and of Knox, has often led to conse- 
quences, at the very mention of which human nature 
recoils. 

While the punishment of incontinence prescribed by 
the institutions of Scotland is severe, the culprits have 
an obvious method of avoiding it afforded them by the 
law respecting marriage, the validity of which requires 
neither the ceremonies of the church, nor any other 
ceremonies, but simply the deliberate acknowledgment 
of each other as husband and wife, made by the parties 
before witnesses, or in any other way that gives legal 
evidence of such an acknowledgment having taken 
place. And as the panties themselves fix the date of 
their marriage, an opportunity is thus given to avoid 
the punishment, and repair the consequences of illi- 
cit gratification. Such a degree of laxity respecting 
so serious a contract might produce much contusion in 
the descent of property, without a still farther indul- 
gence ; but the law of Scotland, legitimating all 
children born before wedlock, on the subsequent mar- 
riage of their parents, renders the actual date of the 
marriage itself of little consequence.} Marriages 
contracted in Scotland without the ceremonies of the 
church, are considered as irregular, and the parties 
usually submit to a rebuke for their conduct, in the 
face of their respective congregations, which is not 
however necessary to render the marriage valid. 
Burns, whose marriage, it will appear, was irregular, 
does not seem to have undergone this part of the disci- 
pline of the church. 

Thus, though the institutions of Scotland are in 
many particulars favourable to a conduct among the 
peasantry founded on foresight and reflection, on the 
subject of marriage the reverse of this is true. Irregu- 

* Gibbon. 

T See Appendix, No. 1. Note C. 

1 See Appendix, No. 1, Note D. 



lar marriages, it may be naturally supposed, are often 
improvident ones, in whatever rank of society they 
occur. The children of such marriages, poorly en- 
dowed by their parents, find a certain degree of instruc- 
tion of easy acquisition ; but the comforts of life, and 
the gratifications of ambition, they find of more diffi- 
cult attainment in their native soil ; and thus the 
marriage laws of Scotland conspire with other cir- 
cumstances, to produce the habit of emigration, and 
spirit of adventure, for which the people are so re 
markable. 

The manners and appearance of the Scottish 
peasantry do not bespeak to a stranger the degree 
of their cultivation. In our own country, their indus- 
try is inferior to that of the same description of men 
in the southern division of the island. Industry and 
the useful arts reached Scotland later than England ; 
and though their advance has been rapid there, the 
effects produced are as yet far inferior both in reality 
and in appearance. The Scottish farmers have in 
general neither the opulence nor the comforts of those 
of England, neither vest the same capital in the soil, 
nor receive from it the same return. Their clothing, 
their food, and their habitations, are almost every 
where inferior.* Their appearance in these respects 
corresponds with the appearance of their country ; and 
under the operation of patient industry, both are im- 
proving. Industry and the useful arts come later into 
England, because the security of property came later. 
Willi causes of internal agitation and warfare, similar 
to those which occurred to the more southern nation, 
the people of Scotland were exposed to more imminent 
hazards, and more extensive and destructive spolia- 
tion, from external war. Occupied in the maintenance 
of their independence against their more powerful 
neighbours, to this were necessarily sacrificed the arts 
of peace, and at certain periods, the flower of their 
population. And when the union of the crowns pro- 
duced a security from national wars with England, for 
the century succeeding, the civil wars common to 
both divisions of the island, and the dependence, per- 
haps the necessary dependence of the Scottish councils 
on those'of the more powerful kingdom, counteracted 
this disadvantage. Even the union of the British na- 
tions was not, from obvious causes, immediately fol- 
lowed by all the benefits which it was ultimately des- 
tined to produce. At length, however, these benefits 
are distinctly felt, and generally acknowledged. 1 rop- 
erty is secure ; manufactures and commerce increas- 
ing ; and agriculture is rapidly improving in Scotland. 
As yet, indeed, the farmers are not, in general, enabled 
to make improvements out of their own capitals, as 
in England ; but the landholders, who have seen and 
fell the advantages resulting from them, contribute to- 
wards them witn a liberal hand. Hence property, as 
well as population, is accumulating rapidly on the 
Scottish soil ; and the nation, enjoying a great part of 
the blessings of Englishmen and retaining several of 
their own happy institutions, might be considered, if 
confidence could be placed in human foresight, to be as 
yet only in an early stage of theirprogress. Yet there 
are obstructions in their way. To the cultivation of 
the soil are.opposed the extent and the strictness of the 
entails ; to'the improvement of the people, the rapidly 
increasing use of spirituous liquors, f a detestable prac- 
tice, which includes in its consequences almost every 
evil, physical and moral. The peculiarity social dis- 

* These remarks are confined to the class of far- 
mers ; the same corresponding inferior will not be 
found in the condition of the cottagers and labourers, 
at least in the article of food, as those who examine 
this subject impartially will soon discover. 

f The amount of the duty on spirits distilled in 
Scotland is now upwards of 250,000/. annually. In 
1777, it did not reach 8,000*. The rate of the duty has 
indeed been raised, but making every allowance, the 
increase of consumption must be enormous. This is 
independent of the duty on malt, &c. malt liquor im- 
ported spirits, and wine. 



PREFATORY REMARKS. 



position of the Scottish peasantry exposes them to this 
practice. This disposition, which is fostered by their 
national songs and music, is perhaps characteristic of 
the nation at large. Though the source of many 
pleasures, it counteracts by its consequences the effects 
of their patience, industry, and frugality, both at 
home and abroad, of which those especially who have 
witnessed the progress of Scotchmen in other coun- 
tries, must have known many striking instances. 

Since the Union, the manners and language of the 
people of Scotland have no longer a standard among 
themselves, but are tried by the standard of the nation 
to which they are united. Though their habits are 
far from being flexible, yet it is evident that their man- 
ners and dialect are undergoing a rapid change. Even 
the farmers of the present day apear to have less of 
the peculiarities of their country in their speech, than 
the men of letters of the last generation. Burns, who 
never left the island, nor penetrated farther into Eng- 
land than Carlisle on the one hand, or Newcastle on 
the other, had less of the Scottish dialect than Hume, 
who lived for many years in the best society of Eng- 
land and France : or perhaps than Robertson, who 
wrote the English language in a style of such purity ; 
and if he had been in other respects fitted to take a 
lead in the British House of Commons, his pronuncia- 
tion would neither have fettered his eloquence, nor de- 
prived it of its due effect. 

A striking particular in the character of the Scottish 
peasantry, is one which it is hoped will not be lost — 
the strength of their domestic attachments. The pri- 
vation to which many parents submit for the good of 
their children, and particularly to obtain for them 
instruction, which they consider as the chief good, has 
already been noticed. If their children live and pros- 
per, they have their certain reward, not merely in 
witnessing, Sut as sharing of their prosperity. Even 
in the humblest ranks of the peasantry, the earnings 
of the children may generally be considered as at the 
disposal of their parents ; perhaps in no country is so 
large a portion of the wages of labour applied to the 
support and comfort of those whose days of labour are 
past. A similar streugth of attachment extends through 
all the domestic relations. 

Our poet partook largely of this amiable character- 
istic of his humble compeers ; he was also strongly 
tinctured with another sti iking feature which belongs 
to them, a partiality for his native country, of which 
many proofs may be found in his writings. This, it 
must be confessed, is a very strong and general senti- 
ment among the natives of Scotland, differing, how- 
ever, in its character, according to the character of the 
different minds in which it is found ; in some appearing 
a selfish prejudice, in others, a generous affection. 

An attachment to the land of their birth is, indeed, 
common to all men. It is found among the inhabitants 
of every region of the earth, from the arctic to the an- 
tartic circle, in all the vast variety of climate, of sur- 
face and of civilization. To analyze this general sen- 
timent, to trace it through the mazes of association up 
to the primary affection in which it has its source, 
would neither be a difficult nor an unpleasiog labour. 
On the first consideration of the subject, we should 
perhaps expect to find this attachment strong in pro- 
portion to the physical advantages of the soil ; but in- 
quiry, far from confirming this supposition, seems 
rather to lead to an opposite conclusion. In those fer- 
tile regions where beneficent nature yields almost 
spontaneously whatever is necessary to human wants, 
patriotism, as well as every other generous sentiment, 
seems weak and languid. In countries less richly en- 
dowed, where the comforts, and even necessaries of 
life must be purchased by patient toil, the affections of 
the mind, as well as the faculties of the understanding, 
improve under exertion, and patriotism flourishes 
amidst its kindred virtues. Where it is necessary to 
combine for mutual defence, as well as for the sup- 
ply of common wants, mutual good-will springs from 
mutual difficulties and labours, the social affections 
unfold themselves, and extend from the men with 
whom we live, to the soil on which we tread. It will 
perhaps be found indeed, that our affections cannot be 



originally called forth, but by objects capable, or sup- 
posed capable, of feeling our seutiments, and of return- 
ing them ; but when once excited they are strengthen- 
ed by exercise, they are expanded by the powers of 
imagination, and seize more especially on those inani 
mate parts of creation, which form the theatre on 
which we have first felt the alternations of joy, and 
sorrow, and first tasted the sweets of sympathy and 
regard. If this reasoning be just, the love of our 
country, although modified, and even extinguished in 
individuals by the chances and changes of life, may be 
presumed, in our general reasonings, to be strong 
among a people in proportion to their social, and 
more especially to their domestic affections. In 
free governments it is found more active than in 
despotic ones, because as the individual becomes 
of more consequence in the community, the com- 
munity becomes of more consequence to him. In 
small states it is generally more active than in large 
ones, for the same reason, and also because the in- 
dependence of a small community being maintained 
with difficulty, and frequently endangered, sentiments 
of patriotism are more frequently excited. In moun- 
.taiuous countries it is generally found more active than 
in plains, because there the necessities of life often re- 
quire a closer union of the inhabitants ; and more es- 
pecially, because in such countries, though less popu- 
lous than plains, the inhabitants, instead of being 
scattered equally over the whole are usually divided 
into small communities on the sides of their separate 
valleys, and on the banks of their respective streams ; 
situations well calculated to call forth and to concen- 
trate the social affections, amidst scenery that acts 
most powerfully on the sight, and makes a lasting im- 
pression on the memory. It may also be remarked, 
that mountainous countries are often peculiarly cal- 
culated to nourish sentiments of national pride and 
independence, from the influence ofhistoiyon the af- 
fections of the mind, in such countries from their 
natural streugth, inferior nations have maintained 
their independence against their more powerful neigh- 
bours, and valour, in all ages, has made its most suc- 
cessful effort against oppression. Such countries pre- 
sent the fields of battle, where the tide of invasion was 
rolled back, and where the ashes of those rest, who 
have died in defence of their nation. 

The operation of the various causes we have men- 
tioned is doubtless more general and more permanent, 
where the scenery of a country, the peculiar manners 
of its inhabitants, and the martial achievments of their 
ancestors are embodied in national songs, and united 
to national music. By this combination, the ties that 
attach men to the land of their birth are multiplied and 
strengthened: and the images of infancy, strongly as- 
sociating with the general affections, resist the influ- 
ence of time, and of new impressions ; they often sur- 
vive in countries far distant, and amidst far dif- 
ferent scenes, to the latest periods of life, to sooth 
the heart with the pleasures of memory, when those of 
hope die away. 

If this reasoning be just, it will explain to us why, 
among the natives of Scotland, even of cultivated 
minds, we so generally find a partial attachment to the 
land of their birth, and why this is so strongly discov. 
erable in the writings of Burns, who joined in the 
higher powers of the understanding the most ardent 
affections. Let no men of reflection think it a super 
fluous labour to trace the rise and progress of a cha 
racter like his. Born in the condition of a peasant, he 
rose by the force of his mind into distinction and influ- 
ence, and in his works has exhibited what are so rare- 
ly found, the charms of original genius. With a deep 
insight into the human heart, his poetry exhibits high 
powers of imagination— it displays, and as it were em- 
balms, the peculiar manners of hi3 country ; and it 
may be considered as a monument, not to his own 
name only, but to the expiringgenius of an ancient ami 
once independent nation. In relating the incidents of 
his life, candour will prevent us from dwelling invidi- 
ously on those failings which justice forbids us to con- 
ceal'; we wil'l tread lightly over his yet warm ashes, 
and respect the laurels that shelter his untimely 
grave. 



H2 



THE LIFE 

OF 

BY DR. ©URRIE. 



ROBERT BURNS was, as is wel' known, the son 
il'a farmer in Ayrshire, and afterwards himself a far- 
mer there ; hut, having been unsuccessful, he was 
about to emigrate to Jamaica, lie had previously, 
however, attracted some notice by his poetical talents 
in the vicinity where he lived ; and having published 
a small volume of his poems at Kilmarnock, thisdiew 
upon him more general attention. In consequence of 
the encouragement he received, he repaired to Edin- 
ourgh, and there published by subscription, an im- 
proved and enlarged edition of his poems, which met 
with extraordinary success. By the profits arising 
from the sale of this edition, he was enabled to enter 
on a farm in Dumfries-shire ; and having married a 
person to whom he had long been attached, he retired 
to devote the remainder of his life to agriculture. He 
was again, however, unsuccessful ; and, abandoning 
his farm, he removed into the town of Dumfries, where 
he filled an inferior office in the excise, and where he 
terminated his life, in July 1796, in his thirty-eighth 
year. 

The strength and originality of his genius procured 
him the notice of many persons distinguished in the 
republic of letters, and among others, that of Mr. 
Moore, well known for his Views of Society and Man- 
ners on the Continent of Europe, Zeluco, and various 
other works. To this gentleman our poet addressed a 
letter, after his first visit to Edinburgh, giving a history 
of his life, up to the period of his writing. In a com- 
position never intended to see the light, elegance, or 
perfect correctness of composition will not be expected. 
These, however, will be compensated by the opportu- 
nity of seeing our poet, as he gives the incidents of his 
life, unfold the peculiarities of his character with all 
the careless vigour and open sincerity of his mind. 



Mauchline,2d August, 1787. 



Sir, 



' For some months past I have been rambling over 
the country ; but I am now confined with some linger- 
ing complaints, originating, as I take it, in the stomach. 
To divert my spirits a little in this miserable fog of 
ennui, I have taken a whim to give you a history of 
my life. My name has made some little noise in this 
country ; you have done me the honour to interest 
yourself very warmly in my behalf; and 1 think a 
faithful account of what character of a man I am, and 
how 1 came by that character, may perhaps amuse you 
in an idle moment. I will give you an honest narra 
live ; though 1 know it will be often at my own ex- 
pense ; for 1 assure you, Sir, I have, like Solomon, 
whose character, excepting in the trifling affair of 
wisdom, I sometimes think 1 resemble — 1 have, I say, 
like him, turned my eyes to behold madness and folly, 
and, like him, too frequently shaken hands with their 
intoxicating friendship.* * * After you have perused 
these pages, should you think them trifling anil i-mper 
.inent, I only beg leave to tell you, that the poor author 
wrote them uuder some twitching qualms of con- 



science, arising from suspicion that he was doing whal 
he ought not to do : a predicament he haB more than i 
once been in before. 

" I have not the most distant pretensions to assume < 
that character which the pye-coaled guardians of es- 
cutcheons call a Gentleman. When at Edinburgh 
last winter; I got acquainted in the Herald's Office ; 
and, looking through that granary of honours, I ! 
there found almost every name in the kingdom: but t 
forme, 

" My ancient but ignoble blood 
Has crept thro' scoundrels ever since the flood. '' 

Gules, Purpure, Argent, &c. quite disowned me. 

" My father was of the north of Scotland, the son of I 
a farmer, and was thrown by early misfortunes on the » 
world at large ; where, after many years' wanderings a 
and sojpurnings, he picked up a pretty large quantity > 
of observation and experience, to which 1 am indebted i 
for most of my little pretensions to wisdom. I have i 
met with few who understood m,n, their manners t and I 
their ways,, equal to him ; but stubborn, ungainly in- • 
tegrity, and headlong ungovernable irascibility, are > 
disqualifying circumstances ; consequently I was born i 
a very poor man's son. For the first six or seven I 
years of my life, my father was gardener to a worthy j 
gentleman of small estate in the neighbourhood of Ayr. 
Had he continued in that situation, I must haves 
marched off to be one of the little underlings about a 
farmhouse; but it was his dearest wish and prayer to 
have it in his power to keep his children under his own 
eye till they could discern between good and evil ; so 
with the assistance of his generous master, my father 
ventured on a small farm on his estate. At those 
years 1 was by no means a favorite with any body. I 
was a good deal noted for a retentive memory, a stub- 
born, sturdy something in my disposition, and an en- 
thusiastic ideot* piety. I say ideal piety, because I 
was then but a child. Though it cost the schoolmaster 
some thrashings, I made an excellent English scholar J 
and by the time 1 was ten or eleven years of age, I was 
a critic in substantives, verbs, and particles. In my 
infant and boyish days, too, I owed much to an old 
woman who resided in the family, remarkable for hei 
ignorance, credulity and superstition. She had, 1 
suppose, the largest collection in the country of tales- \ 
and songs, concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, 
witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf candles. : 
dead lights, writhes, apparitions, cantraips, giants, ; 
enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery, i 
This cultivated the latent seeds of poetry ; but had so 
strong an effect on my imagination, that to this hour, 
in my nocturnal rambles, I sometimes keep a sharp u 
look-out in suspicious places : and though nobody can .1 

* Idiot for idiotic. 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



be more sceptical than I am in such matters, yet it of- 
ten takes an effort of philosophy to shake off these idle 
terrors. The earliest composition that 1 recollect tak- 
ing pleasure in, was The Vision of Mirza, and a hymn 
of Anderson's, beginning, How are thy servants blest, 
OLcrd! I particularly remember one half-stanza, 
which was music to my boyish ear — 

"For though on dreadful whirs we hung 
High on the broken wave — " 

I met with these pieces in Mason's English Collection, 
one of my school books. These two first books I ever 
read in private, and which gave me more pleasure than 
any two books 1 ever read since, were The Life of 
Hannibal and The History of Sir William Wallace. 
Hannibal gave my young ideas such a turn, that 1 used 
to strut in raptures up and down after the recruit 
ing drum and bag-pipe, and wish myself tall enough 
to be a soldier; while the story of Wallace poured 
a Scottish prejudice into my veins, which will boil 
along there till the flood-gates of life shut in eternal 
rest. 

" Polomical divinity about this time was putting the 
country half mad; and I. ambitious of shining in con- 
versation parties on Sundays, between sermons, at 
funerals, &c. used, a few years afterwards, to puzzle 
Calvinism with so much heat and indiscretion that I 
raised a hue and cry of heresy against me, which has 
not ceased to this hour. 

*' My vicinity to Ayr was of some advantage to me. 
My social disposition, when not checked by some 
modifications of spirited pride, was, like our catechism 
definition of infinitude, without bounls or limits. I 
formed several connexions with other younkers who 
possessed superior advantages, the youngling actors, 
who were busy in the rehearsal of parts in which they 
Were shortly to appear on the stase of life, where, 
alas ! I was destined to drudge behind the scenes. It 
is not commonly at this green age that our young gen- 
try have a just sense of the immense distance between 
them and their ragged play-fellows. It lakes a few 
dashes into the world, to give the young great man 
that proper, decent, nnnoticing disregard for the poor, 
* 'gnificanl, stupid devils, the mechanics and peasant- 
ry around him, who were perhaps born in the same 
Village. My young superiors never insulted the clout- 
erly appearance of my ploughboy carcass, the two ex- 
tremes of which were often exposed to all the inclem- 
encies of all the seasons. They would give me stray 
volumes of books ; among them, even then, I could 
pick up some observations ; and one, whose heart I 
am sure not even the Mun <y Begum scenes have 
tainted, helped me to a little French. Parting with 
these my young friends and benefactors as they occa- 
sionally went off for the East or West Indies, was 
often to me a sore affliction ; bur I was soon called to 
more serious evils. My father's generous master 
died ; the farm proved a ruinous bargain ; and, to 
Blench the misfortune, we fell into the hands of a 
factor, who sat for the picture I have drawn of one in 
my Tale of Twa Dogs. My father was advanced in 
life when he married ; 1 was the eldest of seven chil- 
dren ; and he worn out by early hardships, was unfit 
for labour. My father's spirit was soon irritated, but 
lot easily broken. There was a freedom in his lease 
in two years more ; >iad, to weather these two years, 
tve retrenched our expenses. We lived very poorly : 
was a dexterous ploughman, for my age ; and the 
lext eldest to me was a brother (Gilbert) who could 
Irive the plough very well, and help me to thrash the 
lorn. A novel writer might perhaps have viewed these 
lenes with some satisfaction ; but so did not I ; my 

ndignation yet boils at the recollection of the s 1 

actor's insolent threatening letters, which used to set 
u «U in tears. 

This kind of life— the cheerless gloom of a hermit, 
frith the unceasing moil of a gallev-slave, brought me 
10 my sixteenth year ; a little before which period I 
irst committed the sin of Rhyme. You know our 
tountry custom of coupling a man and woman to- 
gether as partners in the labours of harvest. In my 



fifteenth autumn my partner was a bewitching crea- 
ture, a year younger than myself. My scarcity of 
English denies me the power of doing her justice in that 
language ; but you know the Scottish idiom— she was 
abonnie, sweet, sonsie lass. In short, she altogether 
unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that delicious 
passion, which in spite of acid disappointment, gin- 
horse prudence, and book-worm philosophy, I hold to 
be the first of human joys, our dearest blessing here be 
low ! How she caught the contagion I cannot tell : you 
medical people talk much of infection from breathing 
the same air, the touch, &c. ; but I never expressly 
said I loved her. Indeed I did not know myself why I 
liked so much to loiter behind with her, when returning 
in the evening from our labours ; why the tones of her 
voice made my heart strings thrill like an ./Eolian harp ; 
and particularly why my pulse beat such a furious ra- 
tan when I looked and fingered over her iittle hand to 
pick out the cruel nettle stings and thistles. Among 
her other love-inspiring qualities, she sung sweetly ; 
and it was her favorite reel, to which I attempted giv- 
ing an embodied vehicle in rhyme. I was not so pre- 
sumptuous as to imagine that I could make verses like 
printed ones, composed by men who had Greek and 
Latin ; but my girl sung a song, which was said to ba 
composed by a small country laird's son, on one of hia 
maids, with whom he was in love ! and I saw no rea- 
son why I might not rhyme as well as he ; for, except- 
ing that he could smear sheep, and cast peats, his fa- 
ther living in the moorlands, be had no more scholar- 
craft than myself.* 

" Thus with me began love and poetry : which at 
times have been my only, and till within the last twelve 
months, have been my highest enjoyment. My father 
struggled on till he reached the freedom in his lease, 
when he entered on a larger farm, about ten miles far- 
ther in the country. The nature of the bargain he 
made was such as to throw a little ready money into 
his hands at the commencertien of his lease, otherwise 
the affair would have been impracticable. For four 
years we lived comfortably here ; but a difference 
commencing between him and his landlord as to terms, 
after three years tossing and whirling in the vortex of 
litigation, my father was just saved from the horrors 
of a jail" by a consumption, which, after two years' 
promise, kindly stepped in and carried him away, to 
where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary 
are at rest. 

" It is during the time that we lived on this farm, 
that my little story is most eventful. I was, at the 
beginning of this period perhaps the most ungainly, 
awkward boy in the parish— no solitare was less ac- 
quainted with the ways of the world. What I knew 
of ancient story was gathered from Solomon's and 
Guthrie's geographical grammars ; and the ideas I 
had formed of modern manners, of literature and criti- 
cism, I got from the Spectator. These with Pope's 
Works, and some plays of Shalcspeare, Tull and Dick- 
son on Agriculture, The Pantheon, Locke's Essay on 
the HumanUnderstanding, Stackhouse'sHistory of the 
Bible, Justice's British Gardener's Directory, 
Bayle's Lectures, Allan Ramsay's Works, Taylor's 
Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin, A Select Collec- 
tion of English Songs, and Hervey's Mtditations, 
had formed the whole of my reading. The collection 
of Songs was my vade mecum. I pored over them 
driving my cart, or walking to labour, song by song,, 
verse by verse : carefully noting the true tender, or 
sublime, from affectation and fustian. I am convinced 
I owe to this practice much of my critic craft, such as 
it is. 

" In my seventeenth year, to give my manners a 
brush, I went to a country dancingschool. My father 
had an unaccountable antipathy against these meet- 
ings ; and my going was, what to this moment I repent, 
in opposition to his wishes. My father, as I said be- 
fore, was subject to strong passions ; from that in- 
stance of disobedience in me he took a sort of dislike to 
me, which I believe was one cause of the dissipation 
which marked my succeeding years. I say dissipa- 
tion, comparatively with the strictness and' sobriety, 

* See Appendix, No. II. Note A. 



12 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



and regularity ol presbyterian country life ; forthough 
the Will o' Wisp meteors of thoughtless whim were 
almost the sole lights to my path, yet early ingrained 
piety and virtue kept me for several years afterwards 
within the line of innocence. The great misfortune of 
ray life was to want an aim. I had felt early some 
stirrings of ambition, but they were the blind gropings 
ofHomer's Cyclop round the walls of his cave. 1 saw 
my father's situation entailed on me perpetual labour. 
The only two openings by which 1 could enter the tem- 
ple of Fortune, was the gate of niggardly economy, or 
the path of little chicaning bargain-making. The first 
is so contracted an aperture, I never could squeeze 
myself into it; — the last I always hated — there was 
contamination in the very entrance ! Thus abandon- 
ed of aim or view in life, with a strong appetite for 
sociability, as well from native hilarity as from a pride 
of observation and remark; a constitutional melan- 
choly or hypochondraism that made me fly from soli- 
tude ; add to these incentives to social life, my reputa- 
tation for bookish knowledge, a certain wild logical 
talent, and a strength of thought, something like the 
rudiments of good sense ; and it will not seem surpris- 
ing that I was generally a welcome guest where I visit- 
ed, or any great wonder that, always where two or 
three met together, there was I among them. But far 
beyond all other impulses of my heart, was un pen- 
chant a V adorable moitie du genre humain. My 
heart was completely tinder, and was eternally lighted 
up by some goddess or other ; and as iu every other 
warfare in this world, my fortune was various, some- 
times I Wiis received with favour, and sometimes I 
was mortified with a repulse. At the plough, scythe, 
or reaping hook, I feared no competitor, and thus I set 
absolute want at defiance ; and as I never cared far- 
ther for my labours than while 1 was in actual exer- 
cise, I spent the evenings in the way after my own 
heart. A country lad seldom carries on a love-adven- 
ture without an ascenting confidant. I possessed a 
curiosity, zeal, and intrepid dexterity, that recom- 
mended me as a proper second on these occasions ; 
and I dare say, I fell as much pleasure in being in the se- 
cret of half the loves of the parish of Tarbolton, as ever 
did statesman in knowing the intrigues of half the 
courts of Europe. The very goose feather in ray hand 
seems to know instinctively the well worn path of my 
imagination, the favourite theme of my song : and is 
with difficulty restrained from giving you a couple of 
paragraphs on the love adventures of my compeers, the 
humble inmates of the farm-house, and cottage, but 
the grave sons of science, ambition, or avarice, bap- 
tize these things by the name of Follies. To the sons 
and daughters of labour and poverty, they are mat- 
ters of the most serious nature ; to them, the ar- 
dent hope, the stolen interview, the tender farewell, 
are the greatest and most delicious parts of their en- 
joyment. 

" Another circumstance in my life which made some 
alterations in my mind and manners, was that 1 spent 
my nineteenth summer on a smuggling coast, a good 
distance from home at a noted school, to learn men- 
suration, surveying, dialling, &c. in which I made a 
pretty good pi ogress. But I made a greater progress 
in the knowbdge of mankind. The contraband trade 
was at that time very successful, audit sometimes hap- 
pened to me to fall in with those who carried it un. 
Scenes of swaggering, riot and roaring dissipation were 
till this time new to me ; but I was no enemy to social 
life. Here, though 1 learnt to fill my glass, and to mix 
without fear in a drunken squabble, yet I went on 
with ahigh hand with my geometry, till the sun enter- 
ed Virgo, a month which is always carnival in my bo- 
som, when a charming ftlette who lived next door to 
the school, overset my trigonometry, and set me off at a 
tangent from the sphere of my studies. I however 
stiuggled on with my sines and cosines for a few days 
more ; but stepping into the garden one charming noon 
to take the sou's altitude, there I met my angel, 

" Like Proserpine gathering flowers, 
Herself a fairer flower " 

«' It was iu vain to think of doing any more 
good at SQhcuL The remaining waek I staid, 1 did 



nothing but craze the faculties of my soul about her, 
or steal out to meet her ; and the two last nights r 
my stay in the country, had sleep been a mortal sin, 
the image of this modest and innocent girl had kept me 

guiltless. 

" I returned home very considerably improved. My . 
reading was enlarged with the very important addi- 
tion of Thompson's and Shenstone's Works ; 1 had 
seen human nature in a new phasis ; and I engaged 1 
several of my school-fellows to keep up a literary cor- • 
respondence with me. This improved me in compo- 
sition. I had met with a collecti n of letters by the 
wits of Queen Anne's reign, and 1 pored over them 
most devoutly ; I kept copies of any of my own letters 
that pleased me ; and a comparision between thein and 
the composition of most of my correspondents, flattered 
my vanity. I carried this whim so far, that though I 
had not three farthings' worth of business in the world, 
yet almost every post brought me as many letters as 
if I had been a broad plodding son. of day-book and 
ledger. 

" My life flowed on much in the same course till my 
twenty-third year. Vive I' amour, et vive la bagatelle. 
were my sole principles of action. The addition of 
two more authors to my library gave me great plea- 
sure ; Sterne and hVKinzie — Tristram Shandy and 
The Man of Feeling — were my bosom favourites. 
Poesy, was still a darling walk for my mind ; but 
it wa3 only indulged in according to the humour of the 
hour. I had usually half a dozen or more pieces on 
hand ; took up one or other, as it suited the momentary 
tone of the mnnl, and dismissed the work as it bordered 
on fatigue. My passions, when once lighted up, raged 
like so many devils, til) they got vent in rhyme ; and 
then the conning over my verses like a spell, soothed 
all into quiet ! None of the rhymes of those days are 
in print except Winter, a Dirge, the eldest of my 
printed pieces; The Death of Poor Mxlii, John 
Barleycorn, and songs first, second, and thira. Song I 
second was the ebullition of that passion which ended J 
the forementioned school-business. 

" My twenty-third year was to me an important ] 
era. Partly through whim, and partly that I wished' 
to set about doing something in life, 1 joined a flax- 
dresser in a neighbouring town (Irvine) to learn his 
trade. This was an unlucky affair. My***; and 
to finish the whole, as we were giving a welcome car- 
ousal to the new year, the shop took fire, and burnt to 
ashes ; and I was left like a ti'ue poet, not worth a six- ; 
pence. 

"I was obliged to give up^ this schema ; 'be clouds of i 
misfortune were gathering thick routii r.iy father's ; 
head ; and what was worst of all he was visibly fa? 
gone in a consumption ; and to crown my distresses,i 
a belle fille whom I adored, and who had pledged heri 
soul to meet me in the field of matrimony, jilted me, 'j 
with peculiar circumstances of mortification. The fin«; 
ishing evil that brought up the rear of this infernal file, 
was my constitutional melancholv, being increased tOj 
such a degree, that for three months I was in a state on 
mind scarcely to be envied by the hopeless wretcheaj 
who have got their mittimus — Depart from me, ye j 
accursed ! 

" From this adventure I learned something of a,' 
town life ; but the principal thing which gave my mind 
a turn, was a friendship I formed with a young fellow 
a very noble character, but a hapless son of misfor- 
tune, He was the son of a simple mechanic ; but a 
great man in the neighbourhood taking him under his J 
patronage, gave him a genteel education, with a view , 
of bettering his situation in life. The patron dying . 
just as he was ready to launch out into the world, the 
poor fellow in despair went to sea ; where after a va- > 
riety of good and ill fortune, a little before I was ac- 
quainted with him, he had been set on shore by an' 
American privateer, on the wild coast of Connaught, 
stripped of every thing. I cannot quit this poor 
fellow's story without adding, that he is at this time 
master of a large West-Indiaman belonging to tot? 
Thames . 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



IS 



M Hli mina was frnvgBtwitli independence, magna 
Mlraity, and every manly virtue. 1 loved and admired 
him to a degree of enthusiasm, and of course strove to 
imitate him. In some measure I succeeded ; I had 
pride before, but he taught it to flow in proper chan- 
nels. His knowledge of the world was vastly superior 
to mine, and I was all attention to learn. He was the 
only man I ever saw who was a greater fool than my- 
self, where women was the presiding star ; but he 
•poke of illicit love with the levity of a sailor, which 
hitherto I had regarded with horror. Here his friend- 
ship did me mischief; and the consequence was that 
I resumed the plough, I wrote the Poet's Welcome." 
My reading only increased while in this town, by two 
stray volumes of Pamela, and one of Ferdinand 
Count Fathom, which gave me some idea of novels. 
Rhyme, except some religious pieces that are in print, 
I had given up ; but meeting with Ferguson 1 * Scot- 
tish Poems, I strung anew my wildly sounding lyre 
■with emulating vigour. When my father died, his all 
went among the hell hounds that prowl in the kennel 
of justice; but we made a shift to collect a little mon- 
ey in the family amongst us, with which, to keep us to- 
gether, my orother, and I took a neighbouring farm. 
My brother wanted my hair brained imagination, as 
well as my social and amorous madness, but, in good 
sense, and every sober qualification he was far my su- 
perior. 

". I entered on this farm with a full resolution, Come, 
go to, I will bewise! 1 read farming books ; I calcu- 
lated crops; I attended markets; and, in short, in 
spite of the devil, and t/te world, and the flesh, 1 believe 
I should have been a wise man ; but the first year, 
from unfortunately buying bad seed, the second, from 
* late harvest, we lost half our crops. This overset 
all my wisdom, and 1 returned like the dog to his vom- 
it, and the sow that wus washed, to her wallowing in 
tht mire.\ 

I now began to be known in the neighbourhood ns a 
maker of rhymes. The first of my poetic offspring that 
saw the light, was a burletque lementation on a quar- 
rel between two reverend Calvunists, both uf them 
dramatis •persona in my Holy fuir. I had a notion 
myself, that the piece had some niei it ; but to prevent 
'.he worst, I gave a copy of it to a friend who was very 
(bud of such things, and told him that 1 could not guess 
who was the author of it, but that 1 thought it pretty 
clever. With a certain description of the clergy, as 
well as laity, it met with a roar of applause. Ho>y 
Willie's Prayer next made its appearance, and 
alarmed the kirk-session so much, that they held seve- 
ral meetings to look over their spiritual artillery, if 
haply any of it might be pointed against profane rhy- 
mers. Unluckily for me, my wanderings led me on 
another side, within point blank shot of their heaviest 
metal. This is the unfortunate story that gave rise to 
my printed poem, The Lament. This was a most 
melaiicnolv affair, which 1 cannot yet bear to reflect 
on, and had very nearly given me one or two of the 
principal qualifications for a place among those who 
have lost the chart, and mistaken the reckonings of 
Rationality.} I gave up my part of the fai m to my 
brother ; in truth it was only nominally mine ; and 
made what little preparation was in my power for 
Jamaica. But betore leaving my native country for 
ever, I resolved to publish my poems. I weighed my 
productions as impartially as was in my power; I 
thought they had merit ; and it was a delicious idea 
that 1 should be called a clever fellow, even though it 
should never reach my ears— a poor negro driver ; — or 
perhaps a victim to that inhospitable clime, and gone 
to the world of spirits! I can truly say, that paovre 
inconn i as I then was, I had pretty nearly as high an 
idea of myself and of my works as I have at this mo- 
ment, when the public has decided in their favour. It 
ever was my opinion, that the mistakes and blunders, 
both in a rational and religious point of view, of which 

• Rob the Rhymer's Welcome to his Bastard Child. 

t See Appendix, No. II. Note B. 

I An explanation of this will be found hereafter. 



we see thousands daily guilty, are owing to their ig 
norance of themselves. To know myself I had beens.ll 
alongmy constant study. I weighed myself alone ; 1 
balanced myself with others; I watched every means 
of information, to see how much ground I occupied »s 
a man and as a poet ; 1 studied assiduously Nature's 
design in my formation— where the lights and shades 
in my character were intended. 1 was pretty confident 
my poems would meet with some applause ; but, at 
the worst the roar of the Atlantic would deafen ll.a 
voice of censure, and the novelty of West Indian scenes 
make me forget neglect. I threw off six hundred copies, 
of which I had got subscriptions for about three hun- 
dred and fifty. My vanity was highly gratified by tha 
reception 1 met with from the public ; and besides I 
pocketed, all expenses deducted, nearly twenty 
pounds. This sum came very seasonably, as I was 
thinking of indenting myself, for want of money to 
procure my passage. As soon as I was master of nine 
guineas, the price of wafting me to the torrid zone, I 
took a steerage passage in the first ship that was to sail 
from the Clyde ; for, 

" Hungry ruin had me in the wind." 

" I had been for some days skulking from covert to 
covert, under all the terrois of a jail ; as some ill-ad- 
vised people had uncoupled the merciless pack of the 
law at my heels. I had taken the farewell of my few 
friends ; my chest was on the road to Greenock ; I had 
composed the last songl should ever measure in Cale- 
donia, The gloomy night is gathering fast, when a 
letter from Dr. Blacklock, to a friend of mine, over- 
threw all my schemes, by opening new prospects to my 
poetic ambition. The Doctor belonged to a set of 
critics, for whose applause I had not dared to hope. 
His opinion that I would meet with encouragement in 
Edinburgh for a second edition, fired me so much, 
that away I posted for that city, without a single ac- 
quaintance, or single letter of introduction. The bane- 
ful star which had so long shed its blasting influence in 
my zenith, for once made a revolution to the nadir ; 
and a kind 1 rovidence placed me under the patron- 
age of one of the noblest of men, the Earl of Glei* 
cairn. Oublie moi, Grand Diea, si jamis je i'- 
oublie! 



" I need relate no farther. At Edinburgh I was in 
a new world ; I mingled among many classes of men, 
but all of them new to me, and 1 was all attention to 
catch the characters and the manners living as thet/ 
rise. Whether I have profited, time will show. 



" My most respectful compliments to Miss W. Her 
very elegant and friendly letter I cannot answer at 
present, as my presence is requisite in Edinburgh, and 
1 set out to morrow."* 



At the period of our poet's death, his brother, Gil- 
bert Burns, was ignorant that he had himseii written 
the foregoing narrative of his life while in Ayrshire ; 
and having been applied to by Mrs. Duulop for some 
memoirs of his bruiher, he complied with her request 
in a letter, from which the following narrative is chief- 
ly extracted. When Gilbert Burns afterwards saw 
the letter of our poet to Dr. Moore, he made some 
annotations upon it, which shall be noticed as we 
proceed. 

* There are various cop.es of this letter in the an 
thor's hand-writing ; and one of these, evidently cor- 
rected, is in the book in which he had copied several of 
his letters. This has been used for the press, witt 
some omissions, and one slight altera lion, suggested by 
Gilbert Burns. 



14 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



Robert Burn* wnsborn on the 25th day of January 
1158, in a small house about two miles from the town of 
Ayr, and within a few bundled yards of Allowav 
ehurch, which his poem of Tam'o Shantur has ren- 
dered immortal.* The name which the poet and hi* 
brother modernized into Burns, was originally Barnes, 
orBurness. Their father, William Burnes, was the 
•on of a farmer in Kincardineshire, and had received 
the education common in Scotland to persons in his 
condition of life ; he could read and write, and had 
some knowledge of arithmetic. His family having fallen 
into reduced circumstances, he was compelled to leave 
home in his nineteenth year, and turned his steps 
towards the south in quest of a livelihood. The 
■ame necessity attended ins older brother Robert. 
" I have often heard my father," says Gilbert Horns. 
in his letter to Mrs. Dunlop, " describe the anguish 
of mind he felt when they parted on the top of a hill on 
the confines of their native place, each going off his 
several way in search of new adventures, and scai ei l\ 
knowing whither he went. My father undertook to 
act as a gardener, and shaped' his course to Kdin- 
burgb, wheie he wrought hard when he eonld get 
work, passing through a variety of difficulties. Still, 
however, he endeavoured to spare something for the 
support of his aged parents : and I recollect hearing 
him mention his having sent a bank-note for this 
purpose, when money of that kind was so scarce in 
Kincardineshire, that they scarcely knew how to em- 
ploy it when it arrived." From Edinburgh, William 
Burnes passed westward into the county of Ayr, where 
he engaged himself as a gardener to' the Laird of 
Fairly, with whom he lived two years ; then changing 
his eervice for that of Crawford of Doonside. At 
.erwrth. being desirous of settling in life, he took a per- 
pn'.ual lease of seven acres of land Irom Dr. C'amp- 
*>sll, physician in Ayr, with tire view of Gommericing 
TJurseryman and public gardener ; and having built a 
bouse upon it with his own hands, married, in Do- 
sember 1757, Agnes Brown, the mother of our poet, 
who still survives. The first fruit of this marriage 
wa9 Robert, the subject of these memoirs, born on the 
25th of January, 1759, as has already been mentioned 
Before William Burnes had made m»ch progress ii 
preparing his nursery, he was withdrawn from that 
undertaking by Mr. Ferguson, who purchased the 
•.state of Doonholm,in the immediate neighbourhood, 
• Jid engaged him as his gardener and overseer ; and 
fiis was his situation when our poet was born. 
Though in the service of Mr. Ferguson, he lived in 
bis own house, his wife managing her familvand her 
little dairy, which consisted sometimes of two, some- 
times of three milch cows ; and this state of unambi- 
tious content continued till the year 1766. His son 
Robert was sent by him in his sixth vear, to a school 
at Alloway Miln, about a mile distant, taught by a 
person of the name of Campbell , but this teacher 
Vaing in a few months appointed master of the work- 
house at Ayr, William Burnes. in conjunction with 
some other heads of families, engaged John Murdoch 
in his stead. The education of our poet, and of bis 
brother Gilbert, was in common; and of (heir profi- 
ciency under Mr. Murdoch, we have the following 
account : " With him we learnt to read English tole- 
rably well.t and to write a little. He taught us, too, 
the English grammar. I was too young to profit much 
from his lessons in grammar ; but Robert made some 
proficiency in it—a circumstance of considerable 
weight in the unfolding ol his genius and character ; 
as he soon became remarkable for the fluency and 
correctness of his expression, and read the few 
books that came in his way with much pleasure and 
improvement ; for even then he was a reader when 

* This house is on the right hand side of the road 
from Ayr to Maybole, which forms a part of the road 
from Glasgow to Port Patrick. When the poet's fa- 
ther afterwards removed to Tarbolton parish, he sold 
Ms leasehold right in this house, and a few acres of 
land adjoining, to the corporation of shoemakers in 
Ayr. It is now a country ale house. 

* Letter from Gilbert Burnes to Mrs. Dunlop 



he c »uld get a book. Murdoch, whose Irbrery a{ thii 
time had no great variety in it, lent him The Life of 
Han :ibnl, which was the first book he read (the 
echoolbook excepted.) and almost the only one he had 
an opportunity of reading while he was at school ; for 
The Lift of Wallace, which he classes with it in one 
of his letters to yon, he did not see for some years af- 
terwards, when he borrowed it from the blacksmith 
who shod out horses," 

It appears that William Burnes approved himself 
greatly in the service of Mr. Ferguson, by his intelli- 
gence, industry, and integrity. In eouseqi'ience of this 
with a view of promoting his interest, Mr. Ferguson 
leased him a farm, of which we have the following 
account : 

"The farm was upwards of seventy acres* (be 
tween eighty and ninety English statute measure,) 
the rent of which was to be forty pounds annually for the 
tiist six years-, and afterwards forty-five pounds. My 
lather endeavouied to sell bis leasehold property, for 
the purpose of slocking this farm, butatthal time was 
unable, and Mr. Ferguson lent him a hundred pounds 
for that purpose, he lemnved to bis new situation at 
Whitsuntide, 1766. It was, I think, not above two 
years alter this, that Murdoch, our tutor and friend, 
lelt this part of the country ; and there being- no 
sthool near us, and our little services being useful on 
the farm, my lather undertook to teach us arithmetic 
in the winter evenings by eandle-ligbt ; and iu this 
way my two eldest sisters got all the education they 
received I remember a circumstance that happened 
at this time, which, though trifling in itself, is fiesh in 
my memory, and may serve to illustrate the early 
character of my brother. Murdoch came to spend 
a night with us, and to lake his leave when he wa# 
about logo into C'arrick. t e brought. us, asa present 
memorial of him, a small compendium of English 
uimar, and the tragedy of Titus Andronicus, and 
by way of passing the evening, he began to read the 
play aloud. We were all attention for some time, till 
presently the whole party was dissolved in tears. A 
female m the play (I have but a confused remem- 
brance of it) had her hands chopt off, and her tongue 
cut out, and then was insultingly desired to call tor 
water to wash her hands At this, in an agony of 
distress, we with one voice desired he would read no 
more. My father observed, that it we would uothear 
u out, it would be needless to leave the play with us. 
Robert replied, that if it was left he would burn it. 
My father was going to chide him for this ungrateful 
return to his tutor's kindness ; but Murdoch inter- 
leretl, declaring that he liked to see so much sensibili- 
ty ; and he left The School for Love, a comedy 
(translated 1 think from the French,) iu its place."! 

• Letter ot Gilbert Burns to Mrs. Dunlop. The 
name of this farm is Mount Oliphant, in Ayr parish. 

t It is to be remembered that the poet was only nine 
years of age and the relator of this incident under 
eight, at the time it happened. The effect was very 
natural iu children of sensibility at their age. At a 
more mature period of the judgment, such absurd rep- 
resentations hi c calculated rather to produce disgust 
or laughter, than tears. The scene to which Gilbert 
Burns alludes, opens thus : 

Tit* s Aridrqniwe, Act II. Scene 5. 

Enter Demetrius and Chiron, with Lavinia ravithed, 
her hands cut off, and her tongue cut out. 
Why is this silly play still printed as Rhakepeare's, 
against the opinion of all the best critics ? The bard 
of Avon was guilty of many extravagances, but he 
always performed what he intended to perform. 
That he ever excited in a British mind (for the 
French critics must be set aside) disgust or ridicule, 
where he meant to have awakened pity or horror, le 
what will not be injn-.ied *.o ttal master of the l*e- 
sious. 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



15 



" Nothing," continues Gilbert Burns, " could be 
■tore retired than our general manner of living at 
Mount Oli|ihant ; we rarely saw any body but the 
members of our own family. There were no boys of 
our own age, or near it, in the neighbourhood. Indeed 
the greatest part of the land in the vicinity was at that 
time possessed by shopkeepers, and people of that 
•tamp, who bail retired from business, or who kept 
their farm in the country, at the same time that they 
followed business in town. My father was for some 
time almost the only companion we had. He con vers 
ed familiarly on all subjects with us, as we had been 
men; and was at great pains, while we accompanied 
him in the labours of the farm, to lead the conversa- 
tion to such subjects as might tend to increase our 
kuowledge, or confirm us in virtuous habits. He bor- 
rowed Salmon's Geographical Grammar for us, and 
endeavoured to make us acquainted with the situation 
and history of the different countries in the world; 
while from a hook society in Ayr, he procured for us 
the reading of D r hum's Physico and Astro-Theology , 
and Ray's Wisdom of God in the Creation, to give 
us some idea of astronomy and natural history. Ro- 
bert read alt these books with an avidity and industry, 
scarcely tube equalled. My father had been a sub- 
scriber to iitackhouse's H:story of the Bible then 
lately published by James Meuross in Kilmarnock : 
from this Kobeit collected a competent knowledge of 
history ; for no book was so voluminous as to slacken 
his industry, or so antiquated as to damp his research 
es. A brother of my mother, who had lived with us 
some time, and had learnt some arithmetic by winter 
evening's candle, went into a bookseller's shop in 
Ayr, to purchase The Ready R ckoner or Trades- 
man's s..7'e Guide, and a book to teach him to write 
letters. Luckily, i.i place of The Compl. te Letter- 
Writer, he got by mistake a small collection of letters 
by the most eminent writers, with a few sensible di- 
rections lor staining an easy epistolary style. This 
book was tu Hr-uert of the greatest consequence. It 
inspired him with a strong desire to excel in letter wri- 
ting, while it furnished him with models ot some of the 
first writers in our language. 

" My brother was about thirteen or fourteen, when 
my father, regretting that we wrote so ill, sent us. 
week about dining a summer quarter, to the parish 
school of Dalrymple, which, though between two and 
three miles distance, was the nearest to us, that we 
might have an opportunity of remedying this defect. 
About this time a bookish acquaintance of my father's 
procured us the reading of two volumes of Richard- 
son's Pam la, which was the first novel we read, and 
the only part of Richardson's works my brother was 
acquainted with till towards the period of his com- 
mencing author. Till that time too he remained un- 
acquainted with Fielding, with Smollet, (two volumes 
of Ferdinand Count Fathom, and two volumes of 
Peregrine Pickle excepted,) with Hume, with Rob- 
ertson, and almost all our authors of eminence of the 
later times. I recollect indeed my father borrowed 
a volume of English history from Mr. Hamilton of 
Bourtreehill's gardener. It treated of the reign of 
James the First, and his unfortunate son, Charles, but 
I do not know who was lire author ; all that I reniem 
ber of it is something of Charles's conversation with 
his children. About this time Murdoch, our former 
teacher, after having been in different places in the 
country, and having taught a school some lime in 
Dumfries, came to be the established teacher of the 
English language in Ayr, a circumstance of considera- 
ble consequence to us. The remembrance of my 
father's former friendship, and his attachment to my 
brother, made him do every thing in his power for our 
improvement. He sent us I ope's works, and some 
other poetry, the first that we had an opportunity of 
reading, excepting what is contained in The English 
Collectio -,and in the volume of The Edinb..r2h Mag 
azine for 1772; excepting also thos- excdlent new 
tongs that are hawked about the country in baskets, 
or exposed on stalls in the streets, 

« ! The summer after we had been at Dalrymple 
school, my father sent Robert to Ayr, to revise his 
English grammar, with his former teacher. He had 
been there only one week, when he was obliged to re- 



turn to assist at the harvest. When the harvest was 
over, he went back to school, where he remained two 
weeks; and this completes the account of his school eoV 
ucation, excepting one summer quarter, some time af- 
terwards, that he attended the parish school of Kirk- 
Oswald, (where he lived with a brother of my moth- 
er's,) to learn surveying, 

'' During the two last weeks that he was with Mur- 
doch, he himself was engaged in learning French, and 
he communicated the instructions he received to my 
brother, who, when he returned, brought home with 
him a French dictionary arid grammar, and the Ad- 
ventures of T lemathus in the original. In a little 
while, by the assistance of these books, he had acquir- 
ed such a knowledge of tbe language, as to read and 
understand any French author in prose. This was 
considered as a sort of prodigy, and through the medi- 
um of Murdoch, procured him the acquaintance of 
several lads in-Ayr. who were at that time gabbling 
French, and the notice of some families, particularly 
that of Dr. Malcolm, where a knowledge of French 
was a recommendation. 

" Observing the facility with which he had acquired 
the French language, Mr. Robinson the established 
writing master in Ayr, and Mr. Murdoch's particular 
friend, having himself acquired a considerable know- 
ledge of the Latin language by his own industry with- 
out ever having learnt it at school, advised Robert to 
make the same attempt, promising him every assist- 
ance in his power. Agreeably to t his advise, he pur- 
chased The R, diments of the Latin Tongue, but find- 
ing this study dry and uninteresting ; it was quickly 
laid aside. He frequently -returned to his Rudiments 
on any little chagrin or disappointment, particularly 
in his love affairs; but the Latin seldom predomin- 
ated more than a day or two at a time, or a week 
at most. Observing himself the ridicule that would 
attach to this sort of conduct if it were known, he 
made two or three humorous stanzas on the sub- 
ject, which 1 cannot now recollect, but they all ended, 

" So I'll try my Latin again." 

" Thus you see Mr. Murdoch was a principal 
means of my brother's improvement. Worthy man ; 
though foreign to my present purpose, I cannot take 
leave of him without tracinghis future history. He 
continued for some years a respected and useful teach- 
er at Ayr, till one evening that he had been overtaken 
in liquor, he happened to speak somewhat disrespect- 
fully of Dr. Dalrymple, the parish minister, who had 
not paid him that attention to which he thought him- 
self entitled. In Ayr he might as well have spoken 
blasphemy. He found it proper to give up disappoint- 
ment. He went to London, where he still lives, a 
private teacher of French. He has been a consid- 
erable time married, and keeps a shop of stationary 



" The father of Dr. Patterson, now physician of 
Ayr, was, I believe a native of Aberdeenshire, and 
was one of the established teachers in Ayr, when mv 
father settled in the neighbourhood. He earlv recog- 
nized my father as a fellow native of the north'of Scot- 
land, and a certain degree of intimacy subsisted be 
tween them during Mr. Patterson's life. After his 
death, his widow, who was a very genteel woman, and 
of great worth, delighted in doing what she thought 
net- husband would have wished to have done, and as- 
siduously keep up her attentions to all his acquaint- 
ance. She kept alive the intimacy with our family, 
by frequently inviting my father and mother to her 
house on Sundays, when she met them at church. 

" When she came to know my brother's passion for 
hooks, she kindly offered us the use of her husband's 
library, and from her we got the Spectator, Pope's 
Translation of Homer, and several other books that 
were of use to us. Mount Oliphant, the farm my 
father possessed in the parish of Ayr, is almost Ch« 
very poorest soil 1 know of in a state of cultivation. A 
stronger proof of this I cannot give, than that, not- 
withstanding the extraordinary rise in the value m 
lands in Scotland, it was after a considerable v£S. 



16 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



laid out in improving it by the proprietor, let a few 
years ago five pounds per annum lower than the rent 
paid for it by my father thirty years ago. My father, 
in consequence of this, soon came into difficulties, 
which were increased by the loss of several of his cat- 
tle by accident and disease. To the buffetings of mis- 
fortune, we could ouly oppose hard labour, and the 
most rigid economy. We lived very sparing. For 
several years butcher's meat was a stranger in the 
house, while all the members of the family exerted 
themselves to the utmost of their strength, and rather 
beyond it, in the labours of the farm. My brother, at 
the age of thirteen, assisted in thrashing the crop of 
corn, and at fifteen was the principal labourer on the 
farm, for we had no hired servant, male or female. 
The anguish of mind we left at our lender years, under 
these straits and difficulties, was very great. To think 
of our father growing old (for he was now above fifty,) 
broken down with the long continued fatigues of ins 
life, with a wife and five other children and in a de 
dining state of circumstances, these reflections pro 
duced in my brother's mind and mine sensations of the 
deepest distress. I doubt not but the hard labour and 
sorrow of this period of his life, was in a great measu 
the cause of that depression of spirits with whii 
Robert was so often atilicted through his whole life > 
terwards. At this time he was almost constantly a 
flicted in the evenings with a dull head-ache, which at 
a future period of his life, was exchanged for a palpi 
tation of the heart, and a threatening of tainting and 
suffocation in his bed in the night-time. 

" By a stipulation in my father's lease, he had 
right to throw it up, if he thought proper, at the end of 
every sixth year. He attempted to fix himself in a 
better farm at the end of Ihe first six years, but failing 
in that attempt, he continued where' he was for 
years more. He then took the farm of Lochlea, of 130 
acres, at the rent of twenty shillings an acre, in the 

parish of Tarbolton, of Mr. , then a merchant in 

Ayr, and now (179?,) a merchant in Liverpool. He 
removed to this farm on Whitsundav, 1777, and pos- 
sessed it only seven years. No writing had ever been 
made out of the conditions of the lease; a misunder- 
standing took place respecting them; the subjects in 
dispute were submitted to arbitration, and the decis- 
iou involved my father's affairs in ruin. He lived to 
know of this decision, but not to see any execution in 
consequence of it. He died on the 13th of February, 

" The seven years we lived in Tarbolton parish (ex- 
tending from the seventeenth to the twenty-fourth of 
my brother's age,) were not marked by much literary 
improvement; but during this time, the foundation 
was laid of certain habits in my brother's character, 
which afterwards became but too prominent, and 
which malice and envy have taken delight to enlarge 
on. Though when young he was bashful and awk- 
ward in his intercourse with women, yet when he ap- 
proached manhood, his attachment to their society be- 
came very strong, and he was constantly the victim of 
some fair enslaver. The symptoms of his passion were 
often such as nearly to equal those of the celebrated 
Sappho. 1 never indeed knew that he fainted, sunk, 
and died away; but the agitations of his mind and 
body exceeded any thing of the kind I ever knew in 
real life. He had always a particular jealousy of peo- 
ple who were richer than himself, or who had more 
eensequence in life. His love, therefore, rarely settled 
on persons of this description. When he selected any 
one out of the sovereignty of his good pleasure, to whom 
he should pay his particular attention she was in- 
stantly invested with a sufficient stock of charms, out 
of a plentiful store of his own imagination ; and there 
was often a great dissimilitude between his fair capti- 
rator, as she appeared to others, and as she seemed 
when invested with the attributes he gave her. One 
feneraily reigned paramount in his affections but as 

Vorick '8 affections flowed out toward Madam de L 

at the remise door, while the eternal vows of Eliza 
were upon him, so Robert was frequently encounter- 
ing other attractions, which formed so many under- 
plots in the drama of his love. As these connexions 
Were governed by the strictest rules of vn-tue and 



modesty (from which he never deviated till hs rs»ch»d 
his 23d year,) he became anxious to be in a situatioa 
to marry. This was not likely to be soon the case 
while he remained a farmer, as the stocking of a farm 
required a sum of money he had no probability of be- 
ing master of for a great while. He began, therefore, 
to think of trying some other line of life. He and 1 had 
forseveral years taken land of my father for the purpses 
of raising flax on our own account. In the course of 
selling it, Robert began to think of turning flax-dresser, 
both as being suitable to his grand view of settling in 
life, and as subservient to the flax raising. He 
accordingly wrought at the business of a flax-dress- 
er in Irvine for six months, but abandoned it at that 
period, as neither agreeing with his health nor inclina- 
tion. In Irvine he had contracted some acquaintance 
of a freer manner of thinking and living than he had 
been used to. whose society prepared him for over- 
leaping the bounds of rigid virtue which had hitherto 
restrained him. Towards the end of the period under 
review (in his 24th year,) and soon after his father's 
death, he was furnished with the subject of his epistle 
to John Rankin. During this period also, he became 
a freemason, which was his first introduction to the 
life of a boon companion. Yet, notwithstanding these 
circumstances, and the praise he has bestowed on 
Scotch drink (which seems to have misled his histori- 
ans,) I do not recollect, during these seven years, nop 
till towards the end of his commencing author (when his 
growing celebrity occasioned his being often in compa- 
ny,) to have ever seen him intoxicated ; nor was he at 
all given to drinking. A stronger proof of the genera! 
sobriety of his conduct need not be required than what 
I am about to give. During the whole of the time we 
lived in the farm of-Lochlea with my father, he allow- 
ed my brother and me such wages for our labour as he 
gave to other labourers, as a part of which, every ar- 
ticle of our clothing manufactured in the family was 
regularly accounted for. When my father's affairs 
drew near a crisis, Robert and 1 took the farm of Moss- 
giel, consisting of 118 acres, at the rent of 90/. per an- 
num (the farm on which I live at present,) from Mr. 
Gavin Hamilton, as a asylum for the family in case of 
the worst. It was stocked by the property and indi- 
vidual savings of the whole family, and was a joint 
concern among us. Every member of the family wae 
allowed ordinary wages for the labour he performed on 
the farm. My brother's allowance and mine was 
seven pounds per annum each. And during the whole 
time this family concern lasted, which was four years, 
as well as during the preceeding period at Lochlea, his 
expenses never in any one year exceeded his slender 
income. As I was entrusted with the keeping of tha 
family accounts, it is not possible that there can be any 
fallacy in this statement in my brother's favour. His 
temperance and frugality were everything that couid 
be wished. 

" The farm of Mossgiel lies very high, and mostly on 
a cold wet bottom. The first four years that we were 
on the farm were very frosty, and the spring was very 
late. Our crops in consequence were very unprofitn • 
ble ; and, notwithstanding our utmost diligence and 
economy ; we found ourselves obliged to give up our 
bargain, with the loss of a considerable part of our 
original stock. It was during these four years that 
Robert formed his connexion with Jean Armour, after- 
wards Mrs. Burns. This connexion could no longrr 
be cane tiled, about this time we came to a final deter- 
mination to quit the farm. Robert durst not engage 
with his family in his poor unsettled state, but was 
anxious to shield his partner, by every means in his 
power, from the consequence of their imprudence. It 
was agreed therefore between them, that they should 
make a legal acknowledgment of an irregular and pri- 
vate mariiage ; and that he should go to Jamaica to 
push his fortune I and that she should remain with her 
father till it might please I rovidencc to put the means 
of supporting a family in his power. 

Mrs. Burns was a great favorite of her father's. 
The intimation of a marriage was the first suggestion he 
reoeived of her real situation. He was in the greatest 

tress and fainted away. The mariage did not ap» 
pear to make the matter better. A husband in jamai- 

appeared to him aud his wife little better than none, 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



17 



end An effectual bar to any other prospects of a settle- 
ment in life that their daughter might have. They 
therefore expressed a wish to her, that the written 
papers which respected the marriage should be cancel- 
led, and thus the marriage rendered void. In her me- 
lancholy state she felt the deepest remorse at having 
brought such heavy affliction on parents that loved her 
so tenderly, and submitted to their entreaties. Their 
wish was mentioned to Robert. He fell the deepest 
anguish of mind. He olfered to stay at home and pro- 
vide for his wife and family in the best manner thai his 
daily labours could provide for them ; thai being the 
only means in his power. Even this otter they did not 
approve of, for humble as Miss Armour's situation was, 
aiid great though her imprudence had been, she still, 
in the eyes of her partial parents, might look to a bet 
terconnexion than that with my friendless and unhap- 
py brother, at that time without house or abiding 
place. Robert at length consented to their wishes : 
but his feelings on this occasion were of the most dis- 
tracting nature : and the impression of sorrow was not 
effaced, till by a regular marriage they were indissolu- 
bly united. In the slate of mind which this separation 
produced, he wished to leave the country as soon as pos- 
sible, and agreed with Dr. Douglas 10 go out to Jamai 
ca as an assistant overseer ; or, as 1 believe it is called 
a book keeper, on his esiale. As he had not sufficient 
money to pay his passage, and the vessel in when 
Dr. Douglas was to procure a passage for him was not 
expected to sail for some time, Mr. Hamilton advised 
him to publish his poems in the mean time by subscrip- 
tion, as a likely way of getting a little money, to pro 
vide him more liberally in necessaries for Jamaica. 
Agreeably to this advice, subscription bills were print- 
ed immediately, and the printing was commenced at 
Kilmarnock, his preparations going on at the same 
time for his voyage. The reception, however which 
his poems met with in the world, and the friends they 
procured him, made him change his resolution of 
going to Jamaica, and he was advised to go Edin- 
burgh to publish a second edition. On his return, in 
happier circumstances, he renewed his connexion with 
Mrs. Burns, and rendered it permanent by a union for 
life. 

" Thus, Madam, have I endeavoured to give you a 
simple narrative of the leading circumstances in my 
brother's early life. The remaining part he spent in 
Edinburgh, or in Dumfrieshire, and ils incidents are 
as well known to you as to me. His genius have pro- 
cured him your patronage and friendship, this gave 
rise to the correspondence between you, in which, 
I believe, his sentiments were delivered with the 
most respectful, but most uureserved confidence, and 
which only terminated with the lastdays of his life." 



This narrative of Gilbert Burns may serve as a com- 
mentary uu the proceeding sketch of our poets life by 
himself. It will be seen that the distraction of mind 
which he mentions (p, 13.) arose from the distress and 
sorrow in which he had involved his future wile. The 
whole circumstances attending this connexion are cer- 
tainly of a very singular nature." 

The reader will perceive, from the foregoing nar- 
rative, how much the children of William Burnes were 
indebted to their father, who was certainly a man 
of uncommon talents: though it does not appear that 
he posesssed any portion of that vivid imagination for 
which the subjects of these memoirs wasdiiuneuished. 
hi page 13, it U observed by our poet, that his father 
had an unaccountable antipathy to dancing-schools, 
and that hi6 attending one of these brought on him his 
displeasure, and even dislike. On this observation 

* In page 13, the poet mention* his — " skulking from 
eovert to covert, under the terror of a jail." The 
" pack of the law" was " uncoupled at his heels," to 
oblige him to find security for the maintenance of his 
twin children, whom he was not perm" W Jggiti- 
smte by a marriage with 'heir mother 



Gilbert has made the following remark, which teems 
entitled to implicit credit :— " I wonder how Robert 
could attribute to our father that lasting resentment of 
his going to a dancing school against his will, of which 
he was incapable. 1 believe the truth was, that he, 
about this lime began to see the dangerous impetuosity 
of my brother's passions as well as his not being ame- 
nable to counsel, which often irritated my father ; and 
which he would naturally think a dancing school was 
not likely to correct. But he was proud of Robert's 
genius, which he bestowed more expense in cultivating 
than on the rest of the family, in the instances of send- 
ing to Ayr and Kirk-Oswald schools ; and he was 
greatly delighted with his warmth of heart, and bis 
conversational powers. He had indeed that dislike of 
dancing-schools which Robert mentions : but so far 
overcame it during Robert's first month of attendance, 
that he allowed all the rest of the family that were fit 
for it to accompany him during the second month. 
Robert excelled in dancing, and was for some time dis- 
tractedly fond of it." 

In the original letter to Dr. Moore, our poet describ- 
ed his ancestors as " renting lands of the noble Keiths 
ul Marischal. and as having h«d the honour of sharing 
their fate." "I do not," continues he, "use the 
word honour with any reference to political principles ; 
loyal and disloyal, \ take to be merely relative terms, 
in that ancient and formidable court, known in this 
country by the name of Club-law, where the right is 
always with the strongest. But those who dare wel- 
come ruin, and shake hands with infamy, for what 
they sincerely believe to be the cause of their God, or 
their king, are, as Mark Ajitony says in Shakespeare 
ol Brutus and Cassius, honourable men. I mention 
this circumstance because it threw my father on the 
world at large." 

This paragraph has been omitted in printing the let- 
ter, at the desire of Gilbert Burns ; and it would have 
been unnecessary to have noticed it on the present oc- 
casion, had not several manuscript copies of that letter 
been in circulation. " I do not know," observes Gil- 
bert Burns, " how my brother could be misled in the 
account he has given of the Jacobit : sm of his ancestors. 
—I believe the earl Marischa! forfeited his title and 
estate in 1715, before my father was born ; and among 
a collection of parish certificates in his possession, I 
have read one, stating that the bearer had no concern 
in the late wicked rHbellion." On the information of 
one, who knew William Burnes soon after he arrived 
in the county of Ayr, it may be mentioned, that a re- 
port did prevail, that he had taken the field with the 
young Chevalier; a report which the certificate men- 
tioned by his son was, perhaps, intended to counteract. 
Strangers from the north, settling in the low country 
of Scotland, were in those days liable to suspicions of 
having been, in the familiar phrase of the country, 
"Out in the forty-five," (1745) especially when they 
had any stateliness or reserve about them, as was the 
case with William Burnes. It may easily be conceiv- 
ed, that our poet would cherish the belief of his father's 
having been engaged in the daring enterprise of Prince 
Charles Edward. The generous attachment, the he- 
roic valour, and the final misfortunes of the adherents 
of the house of Stewart, touched with sympathy his 
youthful and ardent mind, and influenced hiB original 
political opinions.* 

* There is another observation of Gilbert Burns on 
his brother's narrative, in which some persons will be 
interested. Itrefeisto where the the poet speaks of 
his youthful friends. "My brother," says Gilbert 
Burns, " seems to set off his early companions tu too 
consequential a manner. The principal acquaintances 
we had in Ayr, while boys, were four sons of Mr. An- 
drew M'Culloch, a distant relation of my mother's, 
who kept a lea shop, and had made a little money ia 
the contraband trade very common at that time. He 
rhed while the boys were young, and my father wa» 
nominated one of the tutors. The two eldest were 
bred (hopkeepers, the third a surgeon, and •*■*- 



IS 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



The father of our poet U described by one who knew of a little straw, literally a tabernacle oi clay. In tbi» 

mean cottage, of which I myself was at tunes an in- 
habitant, 1 really believe there dwelt a larger portion 
of content than in any palace in Europe. The Col- 
ter's Saturday Night will give some idea of the tem- 
per and manners that prevailed there.- 

" In 1765, about the middle of March, Mr. W. 
Burnes came to Ayr, and sent to the school where i 
was improving in writing, under my good triend Mr. 
Robinson, desiring that 1 would come and speak to 
him at a certain inn, and bring my writing-book with 
me. This was immediately complied with. Having 
examined my writing, he was pleased with it— (you 
will readily allow he was not difficult,) and told me 
that he had received very satisfactory information of 
Mr. Tennanl, the master of the English school, con- 
cerning my improvement in English, and his method 
of teaching. In the mouth of May following, 1 was 
engaged by Mr. Burnes, and four of his neighbours, to 
teach, and accordingly began to teach the little school 
at Alloway, which was situated a few yards from the 
argillaceous fabric above mentioned. My five employ- 
ers undertook to board me by turns, and to make up a 
certain salary, at the end of the year, provided my 



him towards the latter end of his life, as above the com 
mon stature, thin and bent with labour. His counte- 
nance was serious and expressive, and the scanty locks 
on his head were gray. He was of a religious turn of 
mind, and, as is usual among the Scottish peasantry, 
a good deal conversant in speculative theology. There 
is in Gilbert's hands a little manual of religious belief, 
in the form of a dialogue between a father and his son, 
composed by him for the use of his children, in which 
the benevolence of bis heart seems to have led him t*. 
soften the rigid Calvinism of the Scottish Church, into 
something approaching to Arminianism. He was a 
devout man, and in the practice of calling his family 
together to join in prayer. It is known that the exqui- 
site picture, drawn in stanzas xii. xiii. xiv. xv. xvi. 
and xviii. of the Cotter's Saturday Night, represents 
William Burnes and his family at their evening devo- 
tions. 

Of a family so interesting as that which inhabited 
the cottage of William Burnes, and particularly of the 
father of the family, the reader will perhaps be willing 
to listen to some father account. What follows is giv- 
en by one already mentioned with so much honour in 
the narrative of Gilbert Burns, Mr. Murdoch, the pre- 
ceptor of our poet, who, in a letter to Joseph Cooper 
Walker, Esq. of Dublin, author of the Historical 
Memoirs of the Irish Bards, and the Historical Me- 
moirs of the Italian Tragedy, thus expresses him- 
self: 

" SIR, — I was lately favoured with a letter from our 
worthy friend, the Rev. Wm. Adair, in which he re- 
quested me to communicate to you whatever particu- 
lars I could recollect concerning Robert Burns, the Ayr- 
shire poet. My business being at present multifarious 
and harrassing, rny attention is consequently so much 
divided, and 1 am so little in the habit of expressing my 
thoughts on paper, that at this distance oftiine lean 
give but a very imperfect sketch of the early part of the 
life of that extraordinary genius, with which alone 1 
am acquainted. 

William Burnes, the father of the poet, was born in 
the shire of Kincarden, and bred a gardener. He had 
been settled in Ayrshire ten or twelve years before I 
knew him, and had been in the service of Mr. Craw- 
ford, of Doonside. He was afterwards employed as a 
gardener and overseer by Provost Ferguson of Doon- 
holm, in the parish of Alloway, which is now united 
with that of Ayr. In this parish, on the roadside, a 
Scotch mile and a half from the town of Ayr, and half 
a mile from the bridge of Doon, William' Burnes took 
a piece of land, consisting of about seven acres; part 
of which he laid out in garden ground, and part ol 
which he kept to graze a cow, &c. still continuing in 
the employ of Provost Ferguson. Upon this little farm 
was erected an humble dwelling, of which William 
Burnes was the architect. It was, with the exception 

youngest, the only surviving one, was bred in a count- 
ing-house in Glasgow, where he is now a respectable 
merchant. I believe all these boys went to the West 
Indies. Then there were two sons of Dr. Malcolm, 
whom I have mentioned in my letter to Mrs. Dunlop. 
The eldest, a very worthy young man, went to the 
East Indies, where he had a commission in the army ; 
he is the person whose heart my brother says the Mu- 
ny Begun scenes could not corrupt. The other by 
the interest of Lady Wallace, got an ensigncy in a re- 
giment raised by the Duke of Hamilton, during the 
American war. I believe neither of them are now 
(1797) alive. We also knew the present Dr. I'aterson 
of Ayr, audayounger brother of his now in Jamaica) 
who were much younger than us. 1 had almost for- 
got to mention Dr. Charles of Ayr, who was a little 
older than my brother, and with whom we had a Ion 
jer and closer intimacy than with any of the others 
which did not, however, continue in after life." 



.t, fn 



i the different pupils did not 



My pupil, Robert Burns, was then between six 



Robert, anil 
grounded a 



ven years of age ; his preceptor about eighteen. 



younger biother, Gilbert, had been 
; in English before they were put un- 
der my care. They both made a rapid progress in 
reading, and a tolerable progress in writing. In read- 
ing, dividing words into syllables by rule, spelling with- 
out book, parsing sentences, SfC Robert and Gilbert 
were generally it the upper end of the class, even when 
ranged with boys by far their seniors. The books most 
commonly u?ed in the school were the Spelling Book, 
the New Testament, the Bible, Mason's Collection of 
prose and verse, and Fisher's English Grammar, 
They committed to memory the hymns, and other po- 
ems of that collection, witii uncommon facility. This 
facility was partly owing to the method pursued by 
their father and me in instructing them, which was to 
make them thoroughly acquainted with the meaning 
of every word in each sen'ence that was to be commit- 
ted to memory. By the by, this may be easier done, 
and at an earlier period" than is generally thought. 
As soon as they were capable of it, I taught them to 
turn verse into its natural prose order ; sometimes to 
substitute synonymous expressions for poetical words 
and tosupply all ihe ellipses. These, you know, are 
the means of knowing that the pupil understands his 
author. These are excellent helps to the arrangment 
of words in sentences, as well as to a variety of expres 
si on. 

" Gilbert always appeared to me to possess a more 
lively imagination, and to be more of the wit than Ro- 
bert. I attempted to teach them a little church-mu 
sic : here they were left far behind by all the rest of 
the school. Robert's ear, in particular, was remarka- 
bly dull, and bis voice uniunuble. It was long .before 
I could get them to distinguish one tune from another. 
Robert's countenance was generally grave, and ex- 
pressive, of a serious, contemplative, and thoughtful 
mind. Gilbert's face said, Mirth, with thee I mean to 
live ; and certainly, if any person knew the two boys, 
had been asked which of them was most likely to court 
the muses, he would surely never have guessed that 
Robert had a propensity of that kind. 

" In the year 17e9, Mr. Burnes quitted his mud 
edifice, and took posstssion oi a farm (Mount Oh- 
phant)of his own improving, while in the service of 
Provnst Ferguson. This farm being at a considera- 
ble distance from the 6chool, the boys could not at- 
tend regularly ; and some changes taking place among 
the other supporters of the school, I left it, having 
continued to conduct it for nearly two years and a 
half. 

" In the year 1772, I was appointed (being one of fire 
candidates who were examined) to teach the English 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



19 



•chooi at Ayr j and In 1773, Robert Burns came to 
board and lodge with me, for the purpose of revising 
the English grammar, &c. that he might be belter 
qualified to instruct his brothers and sisters at home. 
He was now with me day and night in school, at all 
mea(3, and in all my walks. At the end of one week , I 
told him, that as he was now pretty much master of 
the part3 of speech, &c. I should like to teach him 
something of French pronunciation ; that when hs 
should meet with the name of a French town, ship, 
officer, or the like, in the newspapers, he might be able 
to pronounce it something like a French word. Robert 
was glad to hear this proposal, and immediately we 
a'tacked the French with great courage. 

"Now there was little else to be heard but the de- 
clension of nouns, the conjunction of verbs, &c. When 
walking together, and even at meals, I was constantly 
telling him the names of different objects as they pre- 
sented themselves, in French; so that he was hourly 
laying in a stock of words, and sometimes little 
phrases. In short, he took such pleasure in learning, 
and I in teaching, that it was difficult "to say which of 
the two was most zealous in the business ; and about 
the end o: the second week of our study of the French, 
we began to read a little of the Adventures of Telema- 
chut, in Fenelon's own words. 

"But now the plains of Mount Oliphant began to 
whiten, when Robert was summoned to relinquish the 
the pleasing scenes that surrounded the grotto of Ca- 
lypso ; and, armed with a sickle, to seek glory by sig- 
nalizing himself in the fields of Ceres — and so he did ; 
for although but about fifteen, I was told that he per- 
formed the work of a man. 

" Thus was I deprived of my very apt pupil, and 
consequently agreeable companion, at the end of three 
weeks, one of which was spent entirely in the study of 
English, and the other two-chiefly in that of French. 
1 dtd not, however, lose sight of him ; but was a fre- 
quent visitant at his father's house, when I had my 
hall holiday ; and very often went, accompanied with 
one or two persons more intelligent than myself, that 
good William Burnes might enjoy a mental feast. — 
Then the labouring oar was shifted to some other hand. 
The father and the son sat down with us, when we 
enjoyed a conversation, wherein solid reasoning, sen- 
sible remark, and a moderate seasoning of jocularity, 
were, so nicely blended as to render it palatable to all 
parties. Robert had a hundred questions to ask me 
about the French, &c. ; and the father, who had al 
ways rational information in view, had still some 
question to propose to my more learned friends, upon 
moral and natural philosophy, orsome su:h interesting 
lubject. Mrs. Burnes too was of the party as much as 
possible ; 

' But still the house affairs would draw her thence, 
Which ever as she could with haste despatch, 
She'd come again, and with a greedy ear, 
Devour up their discourse.' — 

and particularly that of her husband. At all times, 
and in all companies, she listened to him with a more 
marked attention than to any body else. When under 
the necessity of being absent while he was speaking, 
she seemed to regret, as a real los3, that she had miss- 
ed what the good man had said. This worthy woman, 
Agnes Brown, had the most thorough esteem for her 
husband of any woman I ever knew. I can by no 
means wonder thatshe highly esteemed him ; for I my- 
self have always considered William Burnes as by far 
the best of the human race that ever I had the pleasure 
of being acquainted with — and many a worthy charac- 
ter I have known. I can cheerfully join with Robert, 
in the last line of his epitaph (borrowed from Gold- 
smith,) 

" And even his failings lean'd to virtue's side." 

" He was an excellent husband, if I may judge from 
his assiduous attention to the ease and comfort of his 
worthy partner, and from her affectionate behaviour to 



him, as well as her unwearied attention to the duflei 
of a mother. 

" He was a tender and affectionate father ; he took 
pleasure in leading his children in the path of virtue ; 
not in driving them as some parents do, to the perform- 
ance of duties to which they themselves are averse. He 
took care to find fault but very seldom ; and therefore, 
when he did rebuke, he was listened to with a kind 
of reverential awe. A look of disapprobation was felt ; 
a reproof was severely so ; and a stripe with the tawz, 
even on the skirt of the coat, gave heartfelt pain, pro- 
duced a loud lamentation, and brought forth a flood of 
tears. 

" He had the art of gaining the esteem and good-will 
of those that were labourers under him. 1 think I 
never saw him angry but twice ; the one time it was 
with the foreman of the band, for not reaping the fieW 
as he was desired ; and the other time, it was with an 
old man for using smutty inuendoes and double enten- 
dres. Were every foul mouthed old man to receive a 
seasonable check in this way, it would be to the advan- 
tage of the rising generation. As he was at no time 
overbearing to inferiors, he was equally incapable ot 
that passive, pitiful, paltry spirit, that induces some 
people to keep booing and booing in the presence of a 
great man. He always treated superiors with a be- 
coming respect: but he never gave the smallest en- 
couragement to aristocralical arrogance. But I must 
not pretend to give you a description of all the manly 
qualities, the rational and Christian virtues of the 
venerable William Burnes. Time would fail me. 1 
shall only add, that he carefully practised every known 
duty, and avoided every thing" that was criminal ; or. 
in the apostle's words, Herein did he exercise himself 
in living a life void of offence towards God and to- 
wards men. O for a world of men of such dispositions ! 
We should then have no wars. 1 have often wished, 
for the good of mankind, that it were as customary to 
honour and perpetuate the memory of those who excel 
in moral rectitude, as it is to extol what are called he- 
roic actions : then would the mausoleum of the friend 
of my youth overtop and surpass most of the monu- 
ments I see in Westminster Abbey. 

"Although I cannot do justice to the character of 
this worthy man, yet you will perceive from these few 
particulars, what kind of person had the principal 
education of our poet. He spoke the English language 
with more propriety (both with respect to diction and 
pronunciation,) than any man I ever knew with no 
gieater advantages. This had avevygood effect on 
the boys, who began to talk, and reason likemen, much 
sooner than their neighbours. I do not recollect any 
of their contemporaries, at my little seminary, who af- 
terwards made any great figure, as literary characters, 
except Dr. Tennant, who was chaplain to Colonel 
Fullarton's regiment, and who is now in the East In- 
dies. He is a man of geniusand learning ; yetaffable, 
and free from pedantry. 

"Mr. Burnes. in a short time, found that he had 
over-rated Mount Oliphant, and that he could not 
rear his numerous family upon it. After being there 
some years, he removed to Lochlea, in the parish of 
Tarbolton, where, I believe, Robert wrote most of his 
poems. 

" But here, Sir, you will permit me to pause. I ean 
tell you but little more relative to our poet. I shall, 
however, in my next, send you a copy of one of his let- 
ters to me, about the year 1733. I received one since, 
but it is mislaid. Mease remember me, in the best 
manner, to my worthy friend Mr. Adair, when you see 
him, or write to him. 

'■'■Hart street, Bloomsbury-Square, 
London, Feb. 22, 1799." 

As the narrative of Gilbert Burns was written at a 
time when he was ignorant of the existence of the pre- 
ceding narrative of "his brother, so this letter of Mr. 
Murdoch was written without his having any know- 
ledge that either of his pupils had been employed oa 
the same subject. The three relations serve, ther»- 



80 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



fore, not merely to illustrate, but to authenticate each 
other. Though the information they convey might 
have been presented within a shorter compass, by re- 
ducing the whole into one unbroken narrative, it is 
scarcely to be doubted, lhat the intelligent reader 
will be far more gratified by a sight of these original 
documents themselves. 

Under the humble roof of his parents, it appears in- 
deed that our poet had great advantages ; but his op- 
portunities of information at school were more limited 
as to lime than they usually are among his country- 
men in his condition of life ; and the acquisitions 
which he made, and the poetical talent which he ex- 
erted, under the pressure of early and incessant 
toil, and of inferior, and perhaps scanty nutriment, 
testify at once the extraordinary force and activity of 
his mind. In his frame of body he rose nearly to five 
feet ten inches, and assumed the proportions that in- 
dicate agility as well as strength. In the various la- 
bours of the farm he excelled all his competitors. Gil- 
bert Burns declares that in mowing, the exercise that 
tires all the muscles most severely, Robert was the 
only man, that at the end of a summer's day he was 
ever obliged to acknowledge as his master. But though 
ourpoetgave the powers of his body to the labours of 
the farm, he refused to bestow on them his thoughts or 
his cares. While the ploughshare under his guidance 
passed through the sward, or the grass fell under the 
sweep of his scythe, he was humming the songs of his 
country, musing on the deeds of ancient valour, or 
wrapt in the allusions of Fancy, as her enchantments 
rose on his view. Happi.y the Sunday is yet a Sab- 
bath, on which man and beast rest from their labours. 
On this day, therefore, Burns could indulge in a free 
intercourse with the charms of nature. It was his de- 
light to wander alone on the banks of the Ayr, whose 
stream is now immortal, and to listen to the song of 
the blackbird at the close of the summer's day. But 
still greater was his pleasure, as he himself informs us, 
iu walking on the sheltered side of a wood, in a cloudy 
winter day, and hearing the storm rave among the 
trees; and more elevated still his delight, to ascend 
some eminence during the agitations of nature ; to 
stride along its summit, while the lightning flashed 
around him ; and amidst the howlings of the tempest, 
to apostrophize the spirit of the storm. Such situa- 
tions he declares most favourable to devotion. — " Rapt 
in enthusiasm, I seem to ascend towards Him who 
walks on the icings of the winds V If other proofs 
were wanting of the character of his genius, this 
might determine it. The heart of the poet is peculiar- 
ly awake to everv. impression of beauty and sublimity ; 
but, with the higher order of poets, the beautiful is less 
attractive than the sublime. 

The gayety of many •>. Burns' writings, and the 
Kvely, and even cheerful colouring with which he has 
portrayed his own character, may lead some persons 
to suppose, that the melancholy which hun§ over him 
towards the end of his days was not an original part 
of his constitution, ft is not to be doubted, indeed, that 
this melancholy acquired a darker hue in the progress 
of his life ; but, independent of his own and of his 
brother's testimony, evidence is to be found among his 
papers, that he was subject very early to those de- 
pressions of mind, which are perhaps not wholly 
separate from the sensibility of genius, but which in 
him rose to an uncommon degree. The following 
letter addressed to his father, will serve as a proof 
of this observation. It was written at the time when 
he was learning the business of a flax-dresser, and is 
dated, 

Irvine, December 27, 1731. 
w Honoured Sir — I have purposely delayed writing, 
in the hope that I should have the pleasure of seeing 
you on New- Year's day ; but work comes so hard up- 
on us, that I do not choose to be absent on that ac- 
count, as well as for some other little reasons, which 1 
snail tell you at meeting. My health is nearly the 
•ame as when you were here, only my sleep is a "little 
sounder; and, on the whole, I am rather better than 
otherwise, though 1 mend by very slow degrees. The 
Weakness ef my r.erves has so debilitated my mind, 



that I dare neither review past wants, nor look fct* 
ward into futurity ; for the least anxiety or perturba- 
tion in my breast, produces most unhappy effects on 
my whole frame. Sometimes, indeed, when for an 
hour or two my spirits are a little lightened, 1 glimmjr 
into futurity ; but my principal, and indeed my only 
pleasurable employment, is looking backwards and 
forwards in a moral and religious way. I am trans- 
ported at the thought, that ere long, very soon, I shall 
bid an eternal adieu to ail the pains and uneasi- 
ness, anil disquietudes of this weary life ; for 1 as- 
sure you I am hear.ily tired of it ; and, if 1 do not 
very much deceive myself, 1 could contentedly and 
gladly resign it, 

' The soul, uneasy, and confin'd at home, 
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.' 

"It is for thi3 reason I am more pleased with the 
15th, loih, and 17th verses of the 7lh chapter of Reve- 
lations, than with any ten times as many verses in 
the whole Bible, and would not exchange the noble 
enthusiasm with which they inspise me, for all that 
tins world has to offer.* As lor this world, I despair 
of ever making a figure in it. I am not formed for the 
bustle of the busy, nor the flutter of the gay. 1 shall 
never again be capable of entering into such scenes. 
Indeed I am altogether unconcerned at the thoughts of 
this life. I foresee that poverty and obscurity prob;- 
ably await me. I am in some measure prepared, 
and daily preparing to meet them. I have but just 
time and paper to return you my grateful thanks for 
the lessons of virtue and piety you have given rac, 
which were too much neglected at the lime of giving 
them, but which, 1 hope, have been remembered ere 
it is yet too late. Present my dutiful respects to 
my mother, and my compliments to Mr. and Mrs. 
Muir ; and with wishing you a merry New-year's- 
day, I shall conclude. 1 am, honoured Sir, Your 
dutiful son, 

"ROBERT BURNS." 

" P.S. My meal is nearly out j but I am going to 
borrow, till 1 get more." 

This letter, written several years before the publica- 
tion of his poems, when his name was as obscure as his 
condition was humble, displays the philosophic melan- 
choly which so generally forms the poetical tempera- 
ment, and that buoyant and ambitious spirit which 
indicates a mind conscious of its strength. At Irvine, 
Burns, at this time possessed a single room for his 
lodging, rented perhaps at the rate of a shilling a week. 
He passed his days in constant labour as a (lax-dress- 
er, and his food consisted chiefly of oatmeal, sent to 
him from his father's family. The store of this hu.n- 
ble, though wholesome nutriment, it ap pears was near- 
ly exhausted, and he was about to borrow till he 
should obtain a Supply. Yet even in this situation, 
his active imagination had formed to itself pictures of 
eminence and distinction. His despair of making a 
figure in the world, slwws how ardently he wished for 
honourable fame ; and his contempt of life founded on 
despair, is the genuine expression of a youthful and 
generous mind. In such a state of reflection, and of 
suffering, the imagination of Burns, naturally passed 
the dark boundaries ol our earthly horizon, and rested 
on those beautiful representations of a better world, 

* The verses of Scripture here alluded to, are as fol- 
lows : 

15. Therefore are they before the throne of God, 
and serve him day and night in his temple ; and he that 
sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. 

16. They shall hunger no more, nither thirst any 
more; neither shall the sun light oti them, nor any 
heat. 

17. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the 
throne, shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living 
fountains of waters ; and God shall wipe away all 
tears from their eyes. 



THE LIFE OP BURNS. 



21 



where there is neither thirst, nor hunger, nor sorrow ; 
and where happiness shall be in proportion to the 
capacity of happiness. 

Such a disposition is far from being at variance with 
social enjoyments. Those who have studied the affin- 
ities of mind, know that a melancholy of this descrip- 
tion, after a while, seeks relief in the endearments of 
society, and that it ha3 no distant connexion with the 
flow of cheerfulness, or even the extravagance of 
mirth. It was a few days after the writing of this 
letter that our poet, "in giving a welcome carousal 
to the new year, with his gay companions," suffered 
his flax to catch fire, and his shop to be consumed to 
ashes. 

The energy of Burn's mind was not exhausted by 
his daily labours, the effusion of his muse, his socia 
measures, or his solitary meditations. Some time pre 
vious to his engagement as a flax-dresser, havin« 
heard that a debating-club had been established in 



Tarbolton, viz. Hugh Reid, Robert Burns, Gilbert 
Burns, Alexander Brown, Wallet Mitchell, Thomas 
Wright, and William M'Gavin, resolved, for our mu- 
tual entertainment, to unite ourselves into a clnb, or 
society, under such rules and regulations, that while 
we should forget our cares and labours in mirth and 
diversion, we might not transgress the bounds of inno- 
nocence and decorum ; and after agreeing on these, 
and some other regulations, we held our first meeting 
at Tarbolton, in the house of John Richard, upon the 
evening of the 11th of November, 1780, commonly 
called Hallowe'en, and after choosing Robert Burnt 
president for the night, we proceeded to debate on this 
question — Supposed young man, bred a farmer, but 
without any fortune, had it in his power to marry ei- 
thrr of two women, the one a girl of large fortune, 
but ni ither handsome inperson, nor agreeable in con- 
versation, but who can manage the household affairs 
of a farm well enough ; the other of thtm a girl every 
way agreeable in person, conversation, arid behav- 
iour, but without any fortune: which of th-m shall he 
Ayr, he resolved to try how such a meeting woulof choose.' Finding ourselves verv hamiy in oursocietv 
ei!.-...^-! ;.. ii,r> „;n~.,„ ~r t'„..i — 1.~_ .1 . .l a ~t ur a ,-„<.~i 1._ __..: ._ _ l . rJ . . / 



;ed in the village of Tarbolton. About the end 
the year 1780, our poet, his brother, and five other 
young peasants of the neighbourhood, formed them- 
selves into a society of this sort, the declared objects 
of which were to relax themselves after toil, to pro 
mote sociality and friendship, and to' improve the 
mind. The laws and regulations were furnished by 
Burns. The members were to meet after the labour's 
of the day were over, once a week, in a small public 
house in the village ; where each should offer his 
opinion on a given question or subject, supporting it 
by such arguments as he thought proper. The de- 
bate was to be conducted with order and decorum ; 
and after it was finished, the members were to choose 
a subject for discussion at the ens' ing meeting. The 
sum expended by each was not t^ exceed three pence ; 
and, with the humble potation aat this could procure, 
they were to toast their mi ,,esse3, and to cultivate 
friendship with each othe- . This society continued 
its meetings regularly for some time ; and in the 
autumn of 1782, wishing to preserve some account of 
their proceedings, they purchased a book into which 
their laws and regulations were copied, with a pre- 
amble, containing a short history of their transactions 
down to that period. This curious document, which 
is evidently the work of our poet, has been discovered, 
and it deserves a place in his memoirs. 

" History of the Rise, Proceedings, and Regulations 
of the Bachelor's Club. 

" Of birth or blood we do not boast, 
Nor gentry does our club afford ; 

But Ploughmen and mechanics we 
In Nature's simple dress record," 

11 As the great end of human society is to become 
wiser and better, this ought therefore to be the prin- 
cipal view of every man in every station of life. But 
as experience has taught us that such studies as in- 
form the head and mend the heart, wnen long con- 
tinued, are apt to exhaust the faculties ol the mind, it 
ha? been found proper to relieve and unbend the mind 
by some employment or another, that maybe agree- 
able enough to keep its powers in exercise, but at the 
same time not so serious as to exhaust them. But, 
superadded to this, by far the greater part of mankind 
are under the necessity of earning the sustenance of 
human life by the labours of th^ir bodies, whereby, 
not only the faculties of the mind, but the nerves and 
sinews of the body, are eo fatigued, that it is abso- 
lutely necessary to have recourse to some amusement 
or diversion, to relieve the wearied man, worn down 
with the necessary labours of lile, 

" As the best of things, however, have been pervert- 
ed to the worst of purposes, so, under the pretence of 
amusement and diversion, men have plunged into all 
the madness of riot and dissipation ; and, instead of 
attending to the grand design of human life, they have 
begun with extravagance and fo,ly, and ended with 
guilt and wretchedness. Impressed with these con- 
siderations, we, the following ladl jo the parish of 



resolved to continue to meet once a month in the 
same house, in the way and manner proposed, and 
shortly thereafter we cliose Robert Ritchie for another 
member. In May, 1781, we brought in David Sillar,' 
and in June, Adam Jamason, as members. About the 
beginning of the year 1782, we admitted Matthew 
Patterson, and John Orr, and in June followingwe 
chose James Patterson as a proper brother for such a 
society. The club being thus increased, we resolved 
to meet at Tarbolton on the race night, ihe July fol- 
lowing, and have & dance in honoui of our society. 
Accordingly we did meet, each one with a partner, and 
spent the evening in such innocence and merriment, 
such cheerfulness and good humour, that every brother 
will long remember it with pleasure and delight." 
To tins preamble are subjoined the rules and regula- 
tions." t 

The philosophical mind will dwell with interest and 
pleasure, on an institution that combined so skilfully 
the means of instruction and of happiness, and if 
grandeur look down with a smile on these simple an- 
nals, let us trust that it will be a smile of benevolence 
and approbation. It is with regret that the sequel of 
the history of the Bachelor's Club of Tarbolton must 
be told. It survived several years after our poet re- 
moved from Ayrshire, but no' longer sustained by his 
talents, or cemented by his social affections its meet- 
ings lost much of their attraction ; and at length, in 
an evil hour, dissention arising amongst its members, 
the institution was given up, and the records commit- 
ted to the flames. Happily the preamble and the re- 
gulations were spared ; and as matter of instruction 
and of example, they are transmitted to posterity. 

After the family of our bard removed from Tarbolton 
to the neighbourhood of Mauchline, he and his brother 
were requested to assist in forming a similar institution 
there. The regulations of the club at Mauchline were 
nearly the same as those of the club at Tarbolton : 
but cue laudable alteration was made. The fines for 
non attendance had at Tarlton been spent in enlarg- 
ing their scanty potations ; at Mauchline it was fixeO, 
that the money so arising, should be set apart for the 
purchase of books, and the first work procured in this 
manner was the Mirror, the separate numbers of 
which were at that time recently collected and pub- 
lished in volumes. After it, followed a number of 
other works, chiefly of ihe same nature and among 
these the Loung r. The society of Mauchline still 
subsists, and appeared in the list of subscribers to the 
first edition of the works of its celebrated associate. 

The members of these two societies were originally 
all young men from the country, and chiefly sons 01 
farmers ; a description of persons, in the opinion ol 
our poet, more agreeable in their manners, more vir. 

* The person to whom Eurris addressed his Epistlt 
to Davie, a brother poet. 

t For which see Appendix, Jvo, IJ, tfote Q, 



22 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



tuous in their conduct, and more susceptible of im- 
provement, than the self-sufficient mechanics of coun- 
try towns. With deference to the conversation society 
of Mauchline, it may be doubted, whether the books 
which they purchased were of a kind best adapted to 
promote the interest and happiness of persons in this 
situation of life. The Mirror and the Lo,< nger, though 
works of great merit, may be said, on a general view 
of their contents, to be less calculated to increase the 
knowledge, than to refine the taste of those who read 
them ; and to this last object, their morality itself, 
which is, however, always perfectly pure, may be 
considered as subordinate. As works of taste, they 
deserve great praise. They are, indeed, refined to a 
high degree of delicacy ; and to this circumstance it is 
perhaps owing, that they exhibit little or nothing of 
the peculiar manners of the age or country in which 
they were produced. But delicacy of taste, though 
the source of many pleasures, is not without some dis- 
advantages; and to render it desirable, the possessor 
should perhaps in all cases be raised above the neces- 
i ity of bodily labour, unless, indeed, we should include 
tinder this lerm t lie exercise of the imitative arts, over 
which, taste immediately presides. Delicacy of taste 
may be a blessing to him who has the disposal of his 
own time, and who can cnoose what book he shall 
read, of what diversion he shall partake, and what 
company he shall keep. To men so situated, the cul- 
tivation ot taste affords a grateful occupation in itself, 
and opens a path to many oilier gratifications. To 
men of genius, in the possession of opulence and leis 
ure, the cultivation of the taste may be said to be es- 
sential ; since it affords employment to those faculties, 
which without employment would destroy the happi- 
ness of the possessor, and corrects that morbid sensi 
bility, or, to use the expressions of Mr. Hume, that 
delicacy of passion, which is the bane of the tempera- 
ment of genius. Happy had it been for our bard, after 
he emerged from the condition of a peasant, had the 
delicacy of his taste equalled the sensibility of his pas- 
iions, regulating all the effusions of his muse, and 
presiding over all his social enjoyments. But to the 
thousands who share the original condition of Burns, 
and who are doomed to pass their lives in the station 
in whifjl they were born, delicacy of taste, wereiteven 
of easy attainment, would, if not a positive evil, be 
at least a doubtful blessing. Delicacy of taste may 
make many necessary labours irksome or disgusting; 
and should it render the cultivator of the soil unhappy 
in his situation, it presents no mean3 by which that 
situation may be improved. Taste and literature, 
which diffuse so many charms throughout society, 
which sometimes secure to their votaries distinction 
while living, and which still more frequently obtain 
for them posthumous fame, seldom procure opulence, 
or even independence, when cultivated with the ut- 
most attention ; and can scarcely be pursued with ad- 
vantage by the peasant in the short intervals of leisure 
which his occupations illow. Those who raise them- 
selves from the condition of daily labour, are usually 
men who excel in the practice of some useful art, or 
who join habits of industry and sobriety to an ac- 
quaintance with some of the more common branches of 
knowledge. The penmanship of Butter-worth, and 
the arithmetic of Cocker, may be Studied by men in 
the humblest walk3 of life: and they will assist the 
peasant more in the pursuit of independence, than the 
study of Homer or of Shakspeare, though he could 
comprehend, and even imitate the beauties of those 
immortal bards. 

These observations are not offered without some 
|K>riion of doubt and hesitation. The subject has 
many relations, and would justify an ample discussion. 
It may be observed, on the other hand, that the first 
step to improvement is to awaken the desire of im- 
provement, and that '.his will be most effectually done 
by such reading as interests the heart and excites the 
imagination. The greater part of the sacred writings 
themselves, which in Scotland are more especially the 
manual of the poor, come under this description. It 
may be farther observed, that every human being, is 
the proper judge of his own happiness, and within the 
path of innocence, ought to be permitted to pursue it. 
Since it is the taste of the Scottish peasantry to give a \ 



preference to works of taste and of fancy,* it may cm 
presumed they find a superior gratification in the pens* 
sal of such works ; and it may be added, that it is of 
more conseqoence they should be made happy in their 
original condition, than furnished with the means, or 
with the desire of rising above it. Such considerations 
are doubtless of much weight ; nevertheless, the pre- 
vious reflections may deserve to be examined, and here 
We shall leave the subject. 

Though the records of the society at Tarbolton are 
lost, and ihose of the society at Mauchline have not 
been transmitted, yet we may safely affirm, that our 
poet was a distinguished member of both these asso- 
ciations, which were well calculated to excite and to 
develop the powers of bis mind. From seven to twelve 
persons constituted the society of Tarbolton, and such 
a number is best suited to the purposes of information. 
Where this is the object of these societies, the number 
should be such, that each person mav hate an oppor- 
tunity of imparting his sentiments, as well as of receiv. 
ing those of others . and the powers of private conver- 
sation are to be employed, not those of public debate. 
A limited society of tins kind, where the subject of con- 
versation is fixed beforehand, so that each member may 
revolve it previously in his mind, is perhaps one of the 
happiest contrivances hitherto discovered lor shorten- 
ing the acquisition of knowledge, and hastening the 
evolution of talents. Such au association requires in- 
deed somewhat more of regulation than the rules of 
politeness establish in common conversation ; or rather 
perhaps, it requires that the rules of politeness, which 
in animated conversation are liable to perpetual viola- 
tion, should be vigorously enforced. The order of 
speech established in the club at Tarbolton, appears to 
have been more regular than was required in so small 
a society ;t where all that is necessary seems to be the 
fixing on a member to whom every speaker shall ad- 
dress himsell, and who shall in return secure the speak- 
er from interruption. Conversation, which among men 
whom intimacy and friendship have relieved from re- 
serve and restraint, is liable, when left to itself, to so 
many inequalities, and which, as it becomes rapid, so 
often diverg-.s into separate and collateral branches, 
in which it is dissipated and lost, being kept within its 
channel by a simple limitation ol this land which prac- 
tice renders easy and familiar, flows along in one full 
stream, and becomes smoother, and clearer, and deep- 
er, as itflows. Itmayalso be observed, that in this 
way the acquisition of knowledge becomes more plea- 
sant and more easy, from the gradual improvement of 
the faculty employed to convey it. Though some at- 
tention has been paid to the eloquence of the senate and 
the bar, which in this, as in all other free governments. 
is productive of so much influence to the lew who excel 
in it, yet little regard has been paid to the humbler ex- 
ercise of speech in private conversation ; an art that is 
ot consequence to every description of persons under 
every form of government, and on which eloquence ol 
every kind ought perhaps to be founded. 

The first requisite of every kind of elocution, a dis- 
tinct utterance, is the offspring of much lime and of 
long practice. Children aie always defective 111 clear 
articulation, and so are young people, though in a less 
degree. What is called slurring in speech, prevails 
with some persons through life, especially in those 
who are taciturn. Articulation does not seem to reach 
its utmost degree of distinctness in men before the ags 
ol twenty, or upwards ; in women it readies this point 
somewhat earlier. Female occupations require much 
use of speech because they are duties in detail. Be- 
sides, their occupations being generally sedentary, the 
respiration is left at liberty. Their nerves being more 
delicate, their sensibility as well as fancy is more live- 
ly ; the natural consequence of which is, a more Irar 

* In several lists of book-societies among the poorer 
classes in Scotland which the editor has seen, works of 
this description form a great part. These societies 
are by no means general, and it is not supposed that 
they are increasing at present. 

t See Appendix, No. II. Note C. 



THE LIFE OP BURNS. 



23 



{U*ut utterance of thought, a greater fluency of speech , 
•lid a distinct articulation at an earlier age. But in 
men who have not mingled early and familiarly with 
the world, though rich perhaps iu knowledge, and clear 
In apprehension, it is often painful to observe the diffi- 
culty with which their ideas are communicated by 
•peech, through the want of those habits that connect 
thoughts, words, and sounds together ; which, when 
established, seem as if they had arisen spontaneously, 
but which, in truth, are the result cf long and painful 
practice; and when analyzed, exhibit the phenomena 
of most curious and complicated association. 

Societies then, such as we have been describing, 
while they m-y be said to put each member in posses- 
sion of the knowledge of all the rest, improve the pow- 
ers of utterance ; and by the collision of opinion, ex- 
cite the faculties of reason and reflection. To those 
who wish to improve their minds in such intervals of 
labour as the condition ol a peasant allows, this method 
of abbreviating instruction, may, under proper regula- 
tions, be highly useful. To the student, whose opinions, 
springing out of solitary observation and meditation, 
are seldom in the first instance correct, and which 
have, notwithstanding, while confined to himself, an 
increasing tendency to assume in his own eye the cha- 
racter of demonstrations, an association of this kind, 
where they may be examined as they arise, is of the lit- 
mcst importance ; since it may prevent those illusions 
of imagination, by which genius being bewildered, 
science is often debased, and error propagated through 
succtssive generations. And to men who have culti- 
vated letters, or general science in the course of their 
educatiin, hut who are engaged in the active occupa- 
tions of life, and no longer able to devote to study or 
to books the time requisite for improving or preserving 
their acquisitions, associations of this kind, where the 
mind may urbend from its usual cares in discussions 
ol literature or science, afford the most pleasing, the 
most useful, ,ind the most rational ol gratifications.' 

Whether in the humble societies of which he was a 
member, Burns acquired much direct information. 
•nay perhaps be questioned. It cannot however be 
doubted, that by collision, the faculties of his mind 
would be excited • that by practice his habits of enun- 
ciation would be established ; and thus we have some 
explanation of that early command of words and ufex- 
pression which eunabled him to pour forth his thoughts 
ju language not unworthy of his genius, and which of 
all his endowments, seemed, on his appearance inEd- 
inbcrgh, the most extraordinary. t For associations 

* When letters and philosophy were cultivated in 
ancient Greece, the press had not multiplied the tab- 
lets of learning and science, and necessity produced 
the habit of studying as it were in common. Poets 
were found reciting their own verses in public assem- 
blies ; in public schools only philosophers delivered 
theirspeculatioi)3. The taste of the hearers, the in- 
genuity of the scholars, were employed in appreciating 
and examining the works of fancy and of speculation 
submitted to their consideration, and the irrevocable 
words were not given to the world before the composi- 
tion, as wel! as the sentiments, were again and again 
retouched aud improved. Death alone put the last 
seal on the labours of genius. Hence, perhaps, maybe 
in part explained the extraordinary art and skill with 
which the monuments of Grecian literature that re- 
mains to us, appear to have been constructed. 

•t It appears that our Poet made more preparation 
than might be supposed, for the discussion of the soii- 
sty of Tarbollon. There were found some detached 
memoranda, evidently prepared for these meetings ; 
and, amongst others, the heads of a speech on the ques- 
tion mentioned in p. 21, in which, as might be expect- 
ed, lie lakes the imprudent side of the question. The 



of a literary nature, our poet acquired a considerabb 
relish ; and happy had it been for him, after he emerg- 
ed from the condition of a peasant, if fortune had per- 
mitted him to enjoy them in the degree of which he was 
capable, so as to have fortified his principles of virtue 
by the purification of his taste ; and given to the ener- 
gies of his mind habits of exertion that might have 
excluded other associations, in which it must be ac- 
knowledged they were too olten wasted, as well as de- 
based. 

The whole course ofthe Ayr is fine ; but the banks of 
that river, as it bends to the eastward above Mauch- 
line, are singularly beautiful, and they were frequent- 
ed, as may be imagined, by our poet in his solitary 
walks. Here the muse often visited him. In one of 
these wanderings, he met among the woods a celebra- 
ted beauty of the west of Scotland : a lady, of whom it 
is said, that the charms of her person correspond 
with the character of her mind. This incident gave 
rise, as might he expected, to a poem, of which an ae 
count will be found in the following letter, to which he 
inclosed it to the object of his inspiration : 



To Miss 

Mossgiel, Vith Novmber, 1788. 
"Madam, — Poets are such outre beings, so much 
the children of wayward fancy and capricious whim, 
that I believe the world gener ally alows them a larger 
latitude in the laws of propriety, than ihesobersoni 
of judgment and prudence. 1 mention this as an 
apology for the liberties that a nameless stranger has 
taken with you in the inclosed poem, which he begs 
leave to present you with. Whether it has poetical 
merit anyway worthy ofthe theme, I am not the 
proper judge ; but it is the best my abilities can pro- 
duce ; and, what to a good heart v. ill perhaps be a su- 
perior grace, it is equally sincere a-nd as fervent. 

" The scenery was nearly taken from real lifts, 
though I dare say, Madam, you do not recollect it, as 
1 believe you scarcely noticed the poetic revtur as ha 
wandered by you. 1 had roved out as chance direct 
ed, in the favorite haunts of my muse on the banks of 
the Ayr, to view nature in ah the gayety ofthe vernal 
year. The evening sun was flaming over the dis- 
tant western hills ; not a breath stirred the crim- 
son opening blossom, or the verdant spreading leaf. — 
It was a golden moment for a poetic heart. 1 listened 
to the feathered warblers, pouring their harmony on 
every hand, with a congenial kindred regard, and fre- 
quently turned out of my path, lest 1 should disturb 
their little songs, or frighten them to another station. 
Surely, said 1 to myself, he must be a wretch indeed 
who, regardless of your harmonious endeavours to 
please him, can eye your elusive flights to discover 
your secret recesses, alid to rob you and all the proper- 
ty nature gives you, your dearest comforts, your help- 
le-s nestlings. Even the hoary hawthorn twig that 
shot across the way, what heart at such a time but 
most have been interested in its welfare, and wished U 
preserved from the rudely browsing cattle, or the 
withering eastern blast? Such was the scene — and 
such the hour, when, in a corner of my prospect, I 
spied one of the fairest pieces of Nature's workman- 
ship that ever crowned a poetic landscape, or met a 

following may serve as a farther specimen on the ques- 
tions debated in the society at Tarbollon: — Whether 
do we derive more happiness from love or friendship ? 
Whether beiwien friends , who have no reason to aoubl 
each other's friendship, there should be any reserve 7 
WheUur is the savage man, or the peasant of a civili- 
zed couidi-y, in the most happy situation ? — Whether 
is a you.ig man in the lower ranks of life likeliest to 
be happy, who has got a good education, and his mind 
well informed, or he who has just the education and vt- 
formation of those around him 1 



'24 



THE LIFE Of BURNS. 



poet's eye : those visionary bards excepted who hold 
commerce with aerial beings 1 Had Calumny and 
Villiany taken my walk, ihey had at that moment 
sworn eternal peace with such an object. 

" What an hour of inspiration for a poet ! It would 
have raised plain, dull, historic prose into metaphor 
and measure. 

" The enclosed song* was the work of my return 
home ; and perhaps it but poorly answers what might 
have been expected from such a scene. 



" I have the honour to be, Madam, 
Your most obedient, 

and very humble servant, 

""ROBERT BURNS." 

In the manuscript book in which our poet has re- 
counted this incident, and into which the letter and 
poem are copied, he complains that the lady made no 
reply to his effusions, and this appears to have wound- 
ed his self-love. It is not, however, difficult to find 
an excuse for her silence. Burns was at that time 
little known ; and where known at all, noted rather 
for the wild strength of his humour, than for those 
strains of tenderness in which he afterwards so much 
excelled. To the lady herself his name had perhaps 
never been mentioned, and of such a poem she might 
not consider herself as the proper judge. Her modes- 
ty might prevent her from perceiving that the muse of 
Tibullus breathed in this nameless poet, and that her 
beauty was awakening sti ains destined to immortali- 
ty, on the bank of the^Ayr. It may be conceived, al- 
so, that supposing the verse duly appreciated, delica- 
cy might find it difficult to express its acknowledge- 
ments. Tne fervent imagination of the rustic bard 
possessed more of tenderness than of respect. Instead 
of raising himself to the condition of the object of his 
admiration, he presumed to reduce her to his own, and 
strain this high-born beauty to his daring bosom. It 
is true, Burns might have found precedents for such 
freedom among the poets of Greece and Rome, and in- 
deed of every country. And it is not to be denied, 
that lovely women have generally submitted to this 
sort of profanation with patience, and even with good 
humour. To what purpose is it to repine at a misfor- 
tune which is the necessary consequence of their own 
charms, or to remonstrate with a description of mtn 
who are incapable of control ? 

" The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, 
Are of immagination all compact." 

It may be easily presumed, that the beautiful nymph 
of Ballochmyle, whoever she may have been, did 
not reject with scorn the adorations of our poet, though 
the received them with silent modesty and dignified re- 



The sensibility of our bard's temper, and the force 
of his imagination, exposed him in a particular manner 
to the impressions of beauty : and these qualities, unit- 
ed to his impassioned eloquence, cave in turn a power- 
ful influence over the female heart. The Banks of the 
Ayr formed the scene of youthful passions of a still 
tenderer nature, the history of which it would be im- 
proper to reveal, were ii even in our power; and the 
traces of which will soon be discoverable only in those 
strains of nature and sensibility to which they gave 
birth. The song entitled Highland Mary, is known 
to relate to one of these attachments. "It was writ- 
ten," says our bard, " on one of the most interesting 
passages of ray youthful days." The object of this 
passion died in early life, and the impression left on 
the mind of Burii3 seems to have been deep and last- 
ing. Several years afterwards, when he was removed 
to Nithsdale, he gave vent to the sensibility of his rec- 
ollections in that impassioned poem, wnich is address- 
Ki To Mary, in Heaven ! 



The song entitled the Lass of Ballochmyle. 



To the delineations of the poet by himself, by hit 
brother, and by his tutor, these additions are necessa- 
ry, in order that the reader may see his character in 
its various aspects, and may have an opportunity of 
forming a just notion of the variety, as well as of the 
power of his original genius." 

* The history of the poems formerly printed, wll 
be found in the Appendix to this volume. It is in- 
serted in the words of Gilbert Burns, who, in a letter 
addressed to the Editor, has given the following ac- 
count of the friends which Robert's talents procured 
him before he left Ayrshire, or attracted the notice of 
the world. 

" The farm of Mossgiel, at the time of our coming to 
it, (Martinmas. 1783,) was the property of the Earl of 
Loudon, but was held in tack by Mr. Gavin Hamilton, 
writer in Mauchline, from whom we had our bargain • 
who had thus an opportunity of knowing, and showing 
a sincere regard for my brother, before he knew that 
he was a poet. The poet's estimation of him, and the 
strong outlines of his character, may be collected from 
the dedication to this gentleman. When the publica- 
tion was begun, Mr. 11. entered very warmly into its 
interests, and promoted the subscription very exten- 
sively. Mr. Robert Aiken, writer in Ayr, is a man of 
worth and taste, of warm affections, and connected 
with a most respectable circle of friends and relations. 
It is to this gentleman T/lk Colter's Saturday Night is 
inscribed. The poems of my brother which I have fcr- 
merly mentioned, no sooner came into his hands, than 
they were quickly known, and well received in the ex- 
tensive circle of Mr. Aikin's friends, which gave them 
a sort of currency, necessary in this wise world, even 
for the good reception of things valuable in themselves. 
But Mr. Aiken not only admired the poet; as soon as 
he became acquainted with him, he showed the warm- 
est regard for the man, and did every thing in his power 
to forward his interest and respectability. The Epistle 
to a Young Friend was addressed to this gentleman's 
son, Mr. A. 11. Aiken, now of Liverpool. He was the 
the oldest of a young family, who were taught to receive 
my brother with respect, as a man of genius, and their 
father's friend. 

" 7Vie Brigs of Ayr is inscribed to John Ballentine, 
Esq. banker in Ayr; one of those gentlemen to whom 
my brother was introduced by Mr. Aiken. He inter- 
ested himself very warmly in my brother's concerns, 
and constantly showed the greatest friendship and at- 
tachment to him. When the Kilmarnock edition was 
all sold oft", and a considerable demand pointed out the 
propriety of publishing a second edition, Mr. Wilson, 
who had printed the first, was asked if he would print 
the second, and take his chance of being paid from the 
first sale. This he declined, and when this came to 
Mr. Ballantine's knowledge, l.e generously offered to 
accommodate Robert with what money he might need 
for that purpose ; but advised him to go to Edinburgh, 
as the fittest place for publishing. When he did go to 
Edinburgh, his friends advised him to publish again by 
subscription, so that he did not need to accept the offer. 
Mr. William Parker, merchant in Kilmarnock was a 
subscriber for thirty-five copies of the Kilmarnock edi- 
tion. This may perhaps appear not deserving of no- 
tice here ; but if the comparative obscurity of the poe», 



fHE LIFE OF BURNS. 



25 



Wehav. dwelt the longer on the early part of his 
'.il"e, because it is the least known; and because, as 
ha* already been mentioned, this part of his history is 
connected with some views of the condition and man- 
ners of the humblest ranks of society, hitherto little ob 
served, and which will jierhaps be found neither useless 
»Or uninteresting. 

About the time of his leaving his native country, his 
correspondence commences ; and in the series of let- 
ters now given to the world, the chief incidents of the 
remaining part of his life will be found. This authen- 
tic, though melancholy record, will supercede in future 
the necessity of any extended narrative. 



Burns set out for Edinburgh in the month of Novem- 
ber, 1736. He was furnished with a letter of intro- 
duction to Dr. Blacklock, from a gentleman to whom 
the Doctor had addressed the letter which is represent- 
ed by our bard as the immediate cause of his visiting 
the Scottish metropolis. He was acquainted with Mr. 
Stewart, Professor of Moral I'hilosophy in the univer 
sity ; and had been entertained by that gentleman at 
Oatrine, his estate in Ayrshire. He had been intro- 
duced hy Mr. Alexander Dalzel to the earl of Glen- 
cairn, who had expressed his high approbation of his 
poetical talent. He had friends therefore vho could 
introduce him into the circies of literature as well as 
fashion, and his own manners and appearance exceed- 
ed every expectation that could have be-in formed of 
them, he soon became an object of general curiosity 
and admiration. The following circumstance con- 
tributed to this in a considerable degree. — At the time 
when Burns arrived in Edinburgh, the periodical pa- 



itthis period, be taken into consideration, it appears 
to me a greater effort of generosity, than many things 
which appear more brilliant in my brother's future 
history. 

" Mr. Robert Muir, merchant in Kilmarnock, was 
©ne of those friends Robert's poetry had procured him, 
and one who was dear to his heart. This gentleman 
*ad no very great fortune, or a long line of dignifi- 
ed ancestry : but what Robert says of Captain Mat- 
thew Henderson, might be said of him with great 
propriety, that he held the patent of his honours im- 
mediately from Almighty God. Nature had indeed 
marked him a gentleman in the most legible cha- 
racters. He died while yet a young man, soon af- 
ter the publication of my brother's first Edinburgh 
edition. Sir William Cunningha.n of Robertland, 
paid a very flattering attention, and showed a good 
deal of friendship for the poet. Before his going to 
Edinburgh, as well as after, Robert seemed peculiar- 
ly pleased with Professor Stewart's friendship and 
conversation. 

" But of all the friendships which Robert acquired in 
Ayrshire and elsewhere, none seemed more agreeable 
to him than that of Mrs. Dunlop, of Dunlop ; nor any 
which has been more uniformly and constantly exert- 
ed in behalf of him and his family, of which, were it 
proper, I could give many instances. Robert was on 
the point of setting out for Edinburgh before Mrs. Dun- 
lop had heard of him. About the time of my brother's 
publishing in Kilmarnock, she had been afflicted with 
a long and severe illness, which had reduced her mind 
to the most distressing state of depression. In this 
situation, a copy of the printed poems was laid on her 
table by a friend ; and happening to open on The Cot- 
ter't Saturday Night, she read il over with the great- 
est pleasure and surprise ; the poet's description of the 
Mingle cottagers, operating on her mind like the charm 



per, entitled The Lounger, was publishing, every Sat- 
urday producing a successive number. His poem 
had attracted the notice of the gentlemen engaged in 
that undertaking, and the ninety seventh number of 
those unequal, though frequently beautiful essays, il 
devoted to An Account of Robert Burns, the Ayrshire 
Ploughman, with extracts from h is Poems, written 
by the elegant pen of Mr. Mackenzie.* The Lounger 
had an extensive circulation among persons of taste 
and literature, not in Scotland only, but in various 
parts of England, to whose acquaintance therefore our 
bard was immediately introduced. The paper of Mr. 
Mackenzie was calculated to introduce him advan- 
tageously. The extracts are well selected ; the criti- 
cisms and reflections are judicious as well asgenerous ; 
and in the style and sentiments there is that happy 
delicacy, by which the writings of the author, are so 
eminently distinguished. The extracts from Burns'a 
poems in the ninety-seventh lumber of The Lounger 
were copied into the London as well as into many of 
the provincial papers, and the fame of our bard spread 
throughout the island. Of the manners, character, 
and conduct of Burns at this period, the following ac- 
count has been given by Mr. Stewart, Professor of 
Moral Philosophy in the university of Edinburgh, 
in a letter to the editor, which he is peculiar happy 
to have obtained permission to insert in these me- 
moirs. 

" The first time I saw Robert Burns was on the 23a 
of October, 1786, when he dined at my house in Ayr 
shire, together with our common friend Mr. John 
Mackenzie, surgeon, in Mauchline, to whom I am in- 
debted for the pleasure of his acquaintance. I am en- 

of a powerful exorcist, expelling the demon ennui , and 
restoring her to her wonted inward harmony and sat- 
isfaction. Mrs. Dunlop sent off a person express to 
Mossgiel, distant fifteen or sixteen miles, with a very 
obliging letter to my brother, desiring him to send her 
half a dozen copies of his poems, if he had them to 
spare, and begging he would do her the pleasure of 
calling at Dunlop House as soon as convenient. Thi» 
was the beginning of a correspondence which ended 
only with the poet's life. The last use he made of bia 
pen was writing a short letter to this lady a few dart 
before his death. 

"Colonel Fullarton, who afterwards paid a very 
particular attention to the poet, was not in the country 
at the time of his first commencing author. At this 
distance of time, and in the hurry of a wet day, snatch- 
ed from laborious occupations, I may have forgot some 
persons who ought to have been mentioned on this oc- 
casion ; for which, if it come to my knowledge I shall 
be heartily sorry." 

The friendship of Mrs. Dunlop was of particular 
value to Burns. This lady, daughter and sole 
heiress to Sir Thomas Wallace of Craigie, and lineal 
descendant cf the illustrious Wallace, the first of Scot- 
tish warriors, possesses the qualities of mind suited to 
her high lineage. Preserving, in the decline of life, the 
generous affections of youth ; her admiration of the 
poet was soon accompanied by a sincere friendship for 
the man ; which pursued him in after-life through good 
and evil report ; in poverty, in sickness, aud in sor- 
row ; and which is continued to his infant family, now 
deprived of their parent. 

* This paper has been attributed, but improperly, 
to Lord Craig, one of the Scottish judges, author of 
the very interesting account of Michael Bruce in \U9 
36th number. 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



abledto mention the date particularly, by some verseB 
which Burns wrote after he returned home, and in 
which the day of our meeting is recorded. My excel- 
lent and much lamented friend, the late Basil, Lord 
Daer, happened to arrive at Citrine the same day, and 
by the kindness and frankness of his manners, left an 
impression on the mind of the poet, which never was 
effaced. The verses I allude to are among the most 
imperfect of his pieces ; but a few stanzas may perhaps 
be an object of curiosity to you, both on aceount of the 
character to which they relate, and of the light which 
they throw on the situation and feelings of the writer, 
before his name was known to the public* 

"I cannot positively say at this distance of time, 
whether at the period of our first acquaintance, the Kil- 
marnock edition of his poems had been just published, 
or was yet in the press. I suspect that the latter was 
the case, as I have still In my possession copies in his 
own hand writing,of some of his favorite performances ; 
particularly of his verses" on turning up a Mouse with 
his plough ;" — " on the Mountain Daisy ;" and " the 
Lament." On my return to Edinburgh, I showed the 
volume, and mentioned what I knew of the author's 
history to several of my friends : and among others, 
to Mr. Henry Mackenzie, who first recommended 
him to public notice in the 97th number of The Loun- 
ger. 

" At this time Burns's prospects in life were so ex- 
tremely gloomy, that he had seriously formed a plan of 
going out to Jamaica in a very humble situation, not 
however without lamenting that his want of patronage 
should force him to think of a project so repugnant to 
his feelings, when his ambition aimed at no higher an 
object than the station of an exciseman or gauger in 
his own country. 

" His manners were then, as they continued ever 
afterwards, simple, manly, and independent ; strong- 
ly expresive of conscious genius and worth ; but with- 
out any thing that indicated forwardness, arrogance, 
or vanity. He took his share in conversation, but not 
more than belonged to him ; and listened with appa- 
rent attention and deference on subjects where his 
want of education deprived him of the means of infor- 
mation. If there had been a little more gentleness and 
accommodation in his temper, he would, I think, have 
been still more interesting ; but he had been accustom- 
ed to give law in the circle of his ordinary acquaint- 
ance ; and his dread of any thing approaching to mean 
ness or servility, rendered his manner somewhat deci- 
ded and hard. Nothing, perhaps, was more remarka- 
ble among his various attainments, than the fluency, 
and precision, and originality of his language, when 
he spoke in company ; more particularly as he aimed 
at purity in his turn of expression, and avoided more 
successfully than most Scotchmen, the peculiarities of 
Scottish phraseology. 

" He came to Edinburgh early in the winter follow- 
ing, and remained there lor several months. By whose 
advice he took this step, I am unable to say. Perhaps 
it was suggested only by his own curiosity to see a lit- 
tle more of the world ; but, I confess, 1 dreaded the 
consequences from the first, and always wished that 
his pursuits and habits should continue the same as in 
the former part of life ; with the addition of, what I 
considered as then completely within his reach, a good 
farm on moderate terms, in apart of the country agree- 
able to his taste. 

" The attention he received during his stay in town, 
from all ranks and descriptions of persons, were such 
as would have turned any head but his own. I can- 
not say that I could perceive any unfavourable effect 
which they left on his mind. He retained the same 
simplicity of manners and appearance which had 
struck me so forcibly when I first saw him in the coun- 
try ; nor did he seem to feel any additional self-im- 
portance from the number and rank ot his new ac- 

* See the poem entitled " Lines on an Interview 
with Lord Daer." 



quaintance. His dress was perf i«tly suited to ha f/CA' 
tion, plain, and unpretending, with a sufficient atten- 
tion to neatness, if J recollect right he alwaya wora 
boots; and, when on more than usual ceremony, buck- 
skin breeches. 

" The variety of his engagements, while in Edin- 
burgh, prevented me from seeing him so often as I 
could liave wished. In the course of the spring he call- 
ed on me once or twice, at my request, early in the 
morning, and walked with me to Braid-Hills, in the 
neighbourhood of the town, when he charmed me still 
more by his private conveisation, than he had ever 
done in company. He was passionately fond of the 
beauties of nature ; and I recollect once he told 
me when I was admiring a distant prospect in 
one of our morning walks, that the sight of so many 
smoking cottages gave a pleasure to his mind, which 
none could understand who has not witnessed, like 
himself, the happiness and the worth which they con- 
tained. 

" In his political principles he was then a Jacobite ; 
which was perhaps owing partly to this, that his father 
was originally from the estate of Lord Mareschall. 
Indeed he did not appear to have thought much on 
such subjects, nor very consistently. He had a very 
strong sense of religion, and expressed deep regret at 
the levity with which he had heard it treated occasion- 
ally in some convivial meetings, which he frequented. 
I speak of him as he was in the winter of 1786-7 ; for 
afterwards we met but seldom, and our conversations 
turned chiefly on his literary projects, or his private af- 
fairs. 

" I do not recollect whether it appears or not from 
any of your letters to me, that you had ever seen 
Burns.* If you have, it is superfluous to me to add, 
that the idea which his conversation conveyed of the 
powers of his mind, exceeded, if possible, that which 
is suggested by his writings Among the poets whom 
I have happened to know, I have been struck in more 
than one instance, with the unaccountable disparity 
between their geneial talents, and the occasional in- 
spirations of their more favourable moments. But all 
tfie faculties of Burns's mind were, as far as I could 
judge, equally vigorous ; and his predilection for poe- 
try was rathar the result of his own enthusiastic and 
impassioned temper, than of a genius exclusively 
adapted to that species of composition. Prom his con- 
versation I should have pronounced him to be fitted to 
excel in whatever walk of ambition he had chosen to 
exert his abilities. 

" Among the subjects on which he was accustom- 
ed to dwell, the characters of the individuals with 
whom he happened to meet, was plainly a favourite 
one. The remarks he made on them were always 
shrewd and pointed, though frequently inclining too 
much to sarcasm. His praise ol those he loved was 
sometimes indiscriminate and extravagant ; but this, 
I suspect, proceeded rather from the caprice and hu- 
moui of the moment, than from the effects of attach- 
ment in blinding his judgment. His wit was ready, 
and always impressed with the marks of a vigorous un- 
derstanding ; but to my taste, not often pleasing or 
happy. His attempts at epigram, in his printed 
works, are the only performances perhaps, that he 
basproduced, totally unworthy of his genius. 

" In summer, 1787, 1 passed some weeks in Ayrshire, 
and saw Burns occasionally. 1 think that he made 
a pretty long excursion that season to the Highlands, 
and that he also visited what Beattie calls the Arcadi- 
an ground of Scotland, upon the banks of the Teviot 
and the Tweed. 

" I should have mentioned before, that notwith- 
standing various reports 1 heard during the preceed- 
ing winter, of Burns's predilection for convivial, anil 
not very select society, I should have concluded in fa- 
vour of his habits of sobriety, from all of him that ever 
fell under my own observation. He told me indeed 
himself, that the weakness of his stomach was such at 

* The editor has seen and conversed with Born*. . 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



27 



to deprive ni.u entirely of any merit in his temperance. 
I was howevrr somewhat alarmed about the effect of 
bis now comparatively sedentary and luxurious iife, 
When he confessed to me, the first night he spent in 
my house after his winter's campaign in town, that he 
had been much disturbed when in bed, by a palpitation 
of his heart, which, he said was a complaint to which 
be had of late become subject. 

" In the course of the same season I was led by cu- 
riosity to attend tor an hour of two a Mason-Lodge in 
Mauchline, where Burns presided. He had occasion 
to make some short unpremeditated compliments to 
different individuals from whom he had no reason to 
expect a visit, and every tiling he said was happily 
conceived, and forcibly is well as fluently expressed. 
If I am not mistaken, he told me that in that village, 
before going to Edinburgh, he had belonged to a small 
club of such of the inhabitants as had taste for books, 
when they used to converse and debate on any interest- 
ing questions that occurred to them in the course of 
their reading. His manner of speaking in public had 
evidently the marks of some practice in extempore elo- 
cution. 

" I must not omit to mention, what I have always 
considered as characteristlcal in a high degree of true 
genius, the extreme facility and good-nature of his 
taste in judging of the compositions of others, where 
there was any real ground for praise. I repeated to 
him many passages of English poetry with which he 
was unacquainted, and have more than once witness- 
ed the tears of admiration and rapture with which he 
heard them. The collection of songs by Dr. Aikin, 
which I first put into his hands, he read with unmixed 
delight, notwithstanding his former efforts in that very 
difficult species of writing ; and I have little doubt that 
it had some effect in polishing his subsequent composi- 
tions. 

" In judging of prose, I do not think his taste was 
equally sound. 1 ouce read to him a passage or two 
in Franklin s Works, which I thought very happily ex- 
ecuted, upon the model of Addison ; but he did not 
appear to relish, or to perceive the beauty which they 
derived from their exquisite simplicity, and spoke of 
them with indifference, when compared withthe point, 
aud antithesis, and quaintness ot Junius. The influ- 
ence of this taste is very perceptible in his own prose 
compositions, although" their great and various excel- 
lences render some of them scarcely less objects of 
wonder than his poetical performances. The iale Dr. 
Robertson used to say, that considering his education, 
the former seemed to him the more extraordinary of 
the two. 

"His memory was uncommonly retentive, at least 
for poetry, of which he recited to me frequently long 
compositions with the most minute accuracy. They 
were chiefly ballads, and other pieces in Scottish dia- 
lect ; great part of them (he told me) he had learned in 
his childhood from his mother, wbo delighted in such 
recitatons, and whose poetical taste, rude, as it proba- 
bly was, gave, it is presumable, the first direction to her 
eon's genius. 

" Of the more polished verses which accidentally fell 
into his hands in his early years, he mentioned parti- 
cularly the recommendatory poems, by different au- 
thors, prefixed to Hervey'e Meditations ; a book 
which has always had a very wide circulation among 
such of the country people of Scotland, as affect to 
unite some degree of taste with their religious studies. 
Aud these poems (although they are certainly below 
mediocrity) he continued to read with a degree of rap- 
ture beyond expression. He took notice of this fact 
himself, as a proof how much the taste is liable to be 
influenced by accidental circumstances. 

" His father appeared to me, from the account he 
gave of him, to have been a respectable and worthy 
character, possessed of a mind superior to what might 
have been expected from hw station in life. He ascri- 
bed much of his own principles and feelings to the ear- 
ly impressions he had received from his instruction and 



example. I recollect that he once applied to him (and 
he added, that the passage was a literal statement of 
fact) the two last lines of the following passage in the 
Minstrel ; the whole of which he repeated with great 
enthusiasm : 

Shall I be left forgotten in the dust, 

When fate, relenting, lets the flower revive? 
Shall nature's voice, to man alone unjust, 

Bind him, though doom'd to perish, hope to live r 
Is it for this fair vii tue oft must strive, 

With disappointment, penury, and pain? 
No ! Heaven's immortal spring shall yet arrive ; 

And man's majestic beauty bloom again, 
Bright thro' the eternal year of love's triumphant 
reign. 

This truth sublime, his simple sire had taught : 
In sooth, 'twas almost all Ike shepherd knew. 

" With respect to Burns's early education, I cannot 
say any thing with certainty. He always Bpoke with 
respect and gratitude of the schoolmaster who had 
taught him to read English ; and who, finding in his 
scholar a more than ordinary ardour for knowledge, 
had been at pains to instruct him in the grammatical 
principles ot ihe language. He began the study of La- 
tin, and dropt it belure he had finished the verbs. I 
have sometimes heard him quote a few Latin words, 
such as omnia vincit amor, &c. but they seemed to be 
such as he had caught from conversation, and which 
he repeated by rote. I think he had a project, after 
he came to Edinburgh, of prosecuting the study under 
his intimate friend, the late Mr. Nieol, one of the 
masters of the grammar-school here ; but I do not 
know that he ever proceeded so far as to make the 
attempt. 

" He certainly possessed a smattering of French ; 
and, if he had an affectation in any thing, it was in in- 
troducing occasionally a word or phrase from that lan- 
guage. It is possible that his knowledge in this respect 
might be more extensive than 1 suppose it to be ; but 
this you can learn from his more intimate acquaint- 
ance. It would be worth while to inquire, whether 
he was able to read the French authors with 
such facility as to receive from them any improvement 
to his taste. For my own part, 1 doubt it much ; nor 
would 1 believe it, but on very strong and pointed evi- 
dence. 

" If my memory does not fail me, he was well in- 
structed in arithmetic, and knew something of practi- 
cal geometry, particulaily of surveying. — All his other 
attainments were entirely his own.' 

" The last time I saw him was during the winter, 
1788 89,* when he passed an evening with me at 
Drumseugh, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, 
where I was then living. My friend, Mr. Alison, was 
the only other person in company 1 never saw him 
more agreeable or interesting. A present which Mr. 
Alison sent him afterwards of his Essays on Taste, 
drew from Burns a letter ot acknowledgment which I 
remember to have read with some degree of surprise 
at the distinct conception he appeared from it to have 
formed of the general principles of the doctrine of asso- 
ciation. When I saw Mr. Alison in Shropshire last 
autumn, 1 forgot to inquire it the letter be still in exist- 
ence. If it is, you may easily procure it, by means of 
our friend Mr. Houlbrooke."f 



* Or rather 1789-90. I cannot speak with confidence 
with respect to the particular year. Some of my other 
dates may possibly require correction, as I keep no 
journal of such occurrences. 

T This letter is No. CXIV. 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



The scene that opened on our bard in Edinburgh 
Was altogether new, and in a variety of other respects 
highly interesting, especially to one of his disposition 
of mind. To use an expression of bis own, he found 
himself, " suddenly translated from the veiiest shades 
of life," into the presence, and, indeed, into the socie- 
ty of a number of persons, previously known to him by 
report as of the highest distinction in his country, and 
whose characters it was natural for him to examine 
with no common curiosity. 

From the men of letters, in general, his reception 
was particularly flattering. The late Dr. Robinson, 
Dr. Blair, Dr. Gregory, Mr. Stewart, Mr. Mackenzie 
and Mr. Frazer Tytler, may be mentioned in the list 
of those who perceived his uncommon talents, who 
acknowledged more especially Ins powers in conversa- 
tion, and who interested themselves in the cultivation 
ol his genius. In Edinburgh, literary and fashionable 
society are a good deal mined. Our bard was an ac- 
ceptable guest in the gayest and most elevated circles, 
and frequently received from female beauty and ele 
gance, those attentions above all others most grateful 
to him. At the table of Eoi d Monboddo he was a fre- 
quent guest ; and while he enjoyed the society, aim 
partook of the hospitalities of the venerable judge, lie 
experienced the kindness and condecensiou of his 
lovely and accomplished daughter. The singular 
beauty ofthis young lady was illuminated by that hap- 
py expression of countenance which results from the 
union of cultivated taste and superior understanding, 
With the finest affections of the mind. The influence 
of such attractions was not unfell by our poet. "There 
has not been any thing like Miss Burnet, (said he in a 
letter to a friend,) in all the combination of beauty, 
grace, and goodness the Creator has formed, since 
Milton's Eve, on the first day of her existence." In 
his Address to Edinburgh, she is celebrated in a stain 
of still greater elevatiou : 

" Fair Burnet Btrikes th' adoring eye, 
Heaven's beauties on my fancy shine 1 

I see the Sire of Love on high, 
And own his work indeed divine !" 



This lovely woman died a few years afterwards 
In the flower of youth. Our bard expressed his 
■eusibility on that occasion, in verses addressed to 
her memory. 

Among the men of rank and fashion, Burns was par- 
ticularly distinguished by James, Earl of Glencairn. 
On the motion of this nobleman, th* Caledonian Hunt. 
an association of the principal ol the nobility and gen- 
try of Scotland, extended their patronage to our bard, 
and admitted him to their gay orgies. He repaid 
their notice by a dedication of the enlarged and im- 
proved edition of his poems, ill which he has celebrated 
their pan iotism and independence in very animated 
terms. 

" I congratulate my country that the blood of her an- 
cient heroes runs unconlaminated ; and that, from 
your courage, knowledge, and public spirit, she may 
expect protection, wealth, and liberty.*"*' May 
corruption shrink at your kindling indignant glance ; 
and n»E.y tyranny in the Ruler, and licentiousness in 
the People, equally find iu you an inexorable foe 1"* 



It is to be presumed that these generous 3entiments, 
Uttered at an era singularly propitious toindependence 
of character anil conduct, were favourably received by 
the persons to whom they were addressed, and that 
they were echoed from every bosom, as well as from that 
of the Earl of Glencairn. This accomplished nobleman, 
a scholar, a man oftasle and sensibility, died soon af- 
terwards. Had he lived, and had his power equalled 
his wishes, Scotland might still have exulted in the 
genius, instead of lamenting the tally fate of her fa- 
vourite bard. 

• See Dedication prefixed to the Poems 



A taste for letters is not always conjoined with half 
its of temperance ami regularity ; and Edinburgh, at 
the period of which we speak, rnnlainid perhaps an 
uncommon proportion of men ot considerable talents, 
devoted to social excesses, iu which their talents were 
wasted and debased. 

Bums entered into several parties of this descrfp 
tion, with the usual vehemence of his character. His 
generous affections, his ardent eloquence, his brillian'. 
and daring imagination, fitted him to be the idol of 
such associations ; and accustoming himself to con- 
versation of unlimited range, and to festive indulgences 
that scorned restraint, he gradually lost some portion 
of liis relish for the more pure, but'less poignant plea- 
sures, to be found in the circles nf taste, elegance, and 
literature. The sudden alteration of his habits of life 
operated on him physically as well as morally. The 
humble fare c.f an Ayrshire peasant he had exchanged 
for the luxuries of tlie Scottish metropolis, and the ef- 
fects of this change on his ardent constitution could 
not be inconsiderable. But whatever influence might 
be produced on his conduct his excellent understand 
ing suffered no corresponding debasement. He esti- 
mated his friends and associates of every description 
at their proper value, and appreciated his own conduct 
with a precision that ..light give scope to much curious 
and melancholy reflection. He saw his danger, and at 
times formed resolutions to guard against it ; but he 
had embarked on the tide of dissipation, and was borne 
along its stream. 

Of the slate of his mind at this time, an authentic, 
though imperfect document remains, in a book which 
he procured in the spring of 1787, for the purpose, as 
he himself informs us, of recording in it whatever 
seemed worthy of observation. The following ex- 
tracts may serve as a specimen : 

Edinburgh, April 9, 1787. 
'• As I have seen a good deal of human life in Ed- 
inburgh, a great many characters which are new to 
one bred up in the shades of life as I have been, I am 
determined to take down my remarks on the spot. 
Gray observes, in a letter to Mr. l'algrave, that ; half 
a word fixed upon, or near the spot, is worth a cart 
load of recollection.' I don't know how it is with the 
world in general, but with me, making my remarks is 
by no means a solitary pleasure. I want some one 
to laugh with me, some one to be grave with me, 
some one to please me, and help my discrimination, 
with his or her own remark, and at times, no doubt, 
to admire my acuteuess and penetration. The world 
are so busied with stilish pursuits, ambition, vanity, 
interest, or pleasure, that very few think it worth 
their while to make any observation on what passes 
around them, except where that observation is a 
sucker, or branch of the darling plant they are rear- 
ing in their fancy. Nor am I sine, notwithstanding 
all the sentimental flights of novel writers, and the 
sage piiilosophy of moralists, whether we are capable 
of so intimate and cordial a coalition of friendship, as 
that one man m.iy pour out his bosom, his every 
thought and floating fancy, his very inmost soul, with 
unreserved confidence to another, without hazard of 
losing part of that respect which man deceives from 
man; or, from the unavoidable imperfections at- 
tending human nature, of one day repenting his con- 
fidence. 

" For these reasons I am determined to make these 
pages my confidant ; I will sketch every character 
that anv way strikes me, to the best of my power, 
with unshrinking justice. 1 will insert anecdotes, and 
take down remarks in the old law phrase, withoit 
fend oi favour. Where I hit on any thing clever, 
my own applause will, in some measure, feast my 
vanity ; and, begging 1 atroclus' and Achates' par- 
don, I think a lock and key a security, at least equal 
to the bosom of any friend whatever. 

" My own private story likewise, my love adven- 
tures, my rambles ; the frowns and smiles of fortune 
on my hardship ; my poems and fragments, that 
must never see the light, shall be occasionally insm- 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



29 



•4. la short, nerer did four shillings purchase so 
much friendship, since confidence went first to mar- 
ket, or honesty was set up to sale. 

" To these seemingly invidious, but too just ideas of 
human friendship, I would cheerfully make one ex- 
ception — the connexion between two persons of dif- 
ferent sexes, when their interests are united and ab- 
eorbed by the tie of love — 

When thought meets thought, ' ere from the lips it 

part, 
And each warm wish springs mutual from the heart. 

There confidence, confidence that exalts them the 
more in one another's opinion, that endears them the 
more to each other's hearts, unrecai vedly " reigns and 
revels." But this is not my lot ; and, in my situa- 
tion, if I am wise, (which, by the by, I have no great 
chance of being,) my fate should be cast with the 
Psalmist's sparrow, " to watch alone on the house- 
tops." — Oh I the pity. 



" There are few of the sore evils under the sun give 
me more jneasiuess and chagrin than the comparison 
how a man of genius, nay, of avowed worth, is re- 
ceived every where, with the reception which a mere 
ordinary character, decorated with the trappings and 
futile distinctions of fortune, meets. 1 imagine a man 
uf abilities, his breast glowing with honest pride, con- 
scious that men are born equal, still giving honour to 
honour to whom honom is due ; he meets at a great 
man's table, a Squire something, or a Sir somebody : 
he knows the noble landlord, at heart, gives the bard, 
or whatever he is, a share of his good wishes, be- 
yond, perhaps, any one at table ; yet how will it mor- 
tify him to see a fellow, whose abilities would scarce- 
ly have made an eight-penny tailor, and whose heart 
is not worth three farthings, meet with attention and 
notice, that are withheld from the son of genius and 
poverty 1 

" The noble Glencairn has wounded me to the 3oul 
here, because I dearly esteem, respect, and love him. 
He showed so much attention, engrossing attention 
one day, to the only blockhead at table, (the whole 
company consisted of his lordship, dunderpate, and 
myself,) that 1 was within half a point of throwing 
down my gage of contemptuous defiance ; but he 
shook my hand, and looked so benevolently good at 
parting. God bless him ! though 1 should never see 
Slim more, 1 shall love him until my dying day ! 1 am 
pleased to think I am so capable of the throes of grat- 
itude, as I am miserably deficient in some other vir- 
tues. 

" With Dr. Blair 1 am more at my ease. I never 
respect him with humble veneration ; but when he 
kindly interests himself in my welfare, or still more, 
when he descends from his pinnacle, and meets me on 
equal ground in conversation, my heart overflows 
with what is called liking. When he neglects me for 
the mere carcass of greatness, or when his eye mea- 
sures the difference of our points of elevation, I say to 
myself, with scarcely any emotion, what do 1 care for 
him or his pomp either t" 



The intentions of the poet in procuring this hook, so 
fully described by himself, were very imperfectly exe- 
cuted. He has inserted in it few or no incidents, but 
several observations and reflections, of which the 
Greater part 'hat are proper for the public eye, will be 
found interwoven in his letters. The most curious 
particulars in the book are the delineations of the 
characters he met with. These are not numerous ; 
hut they are chiefly of persons of distinction in the re- 
public of letters , and nothing but the delicacy and 
espect due to living characters, prevents us from 
eomtnitting them to the press. Though it appears 
hat in his conversation he was sometimes disposed to 
ftreastic remarks on the men with whom he lived, 
••thing of this kind is discoverable i» the?* more de- 



liberate efforts of his understanding, which, white 
they exhibit great clearness of discrimination, mani 
fest also the wish, as well as the power, to bestow 
high and generous praise. 

As a specimen of these delineations, we give in this 
edition the character of Dr. Blair, who has now paid 
the debt of nature, in the full confidence that this 
freedom will not be found inconsistent with the res- 
pect and veneration due to that excellent man, the last 
star in the literary constellation, by which the me- 
tropolis of Scotland was, Hi the earlier part of the 
present reign, so beautifully illuminated. 

" It is not easy forming an exact judgment of any 
one ; but, in my opinion, Dr. Blair is merely an as- 
tonisning proof of what industry and application can 
do. Natural parts like his are frequently to be met 
with ; his vanity is proverbially known among his ac- 
quaintance ; but he is justly at the head of what may 
be called fine writing ; and a critic of the first, the 
very first rank in prose ; even in poetry, a bard of 
Nature's making can only take the pus of him. He 
has a heart, not of the very finest water, but far from 
being an ordinary one. In short, he is truly a worthy 
and most respectable character." 



By the new edition of his poems, Burns acquired a 
sum of money that enabled him not only to partake 
of the pleasures of Edinburgh, but to gratify a desire 
he had long entertained, of visiting those parts of his 
native country, most attractive by their beauty or 
their grandeur ; a desire which the return of summer 
naturally revived. The scenery on the banks of the 
Tweed, and of its tributary streams, strongly interest- 
ed his fancy ; and accordingly he left Edinburgh on 
the 6th of May, 1787, on a tour through a country so 
much celebrated in the rural songs of Scotland. He 
travelled on horseback, and was accompanied, during 
some part of his journey, by Mr. Ainslie, now writer to 
the signet, a gentleman who enjoyed much of his friend- 
ship and of his confidence. Ot this tour a journal re- 
mains, which, however, contains only occasional re- 
marks on the scenery, and which is chiefly occupied 
with an account of the author's different stages, and 
with his observations on the various characters to 
whom he was introduced. In the course of this tour 
he visited Mr, Ainslie of Berrywell, the father of his 
companion ; Mr. Brydone, the celebrated traveller, to 
whom he carried a letter of introduction from Mr. 
Mackenzie ; the Rev. Dr. Sommerville, of Jedburgh, 
the historian ; Mr. and Mrs. Scott, of Wauchope ; Dr. 
Elliot, a physician, retired to a romantic spot on the 
banks of the Rnole ; Sir Alexander Don ; Sir James 
Hall, of Dunglass ; and a great variety of other res- 
pectable characters. Every where the fame of the 
poet had spread before him, and every where he re 
ceived the most hospitable and flattering attentions. 
At Jedburgh he continued several days, and was ho- 
noured by the magistrates with the freedom of their 
borough. The following may serve as a specimen of 
this tour, which the perpetual reference to living, 
characters prevents our giving at large. 

" Saturday, May 6th. Left Edinburgh— Lammer- 
muir-hills, miserably dreary in general, but at times 
very picturesque. 

" Lanson-edge, a glorious view of the Merss.— 
Reach Berrywell * * * The family-meeting with 
my compagnon de voyage, very charming ; particu- 
larly the sister. * * 

" Saturday. Went to church at Dunse. Heard Dr. 
Bowmaker. • * » 

Monday. Coldstream — glorious river Tweed— 
3iear and majestic — fine bridge — dine at Coldstream 
with Mr. Ainslie and Mr. Foreman. Beat Mr. Fore- 
man in a dispute about Voltaire. Drink tea at Lenet- 
HousewithMr. and Mrs. Brydone. *** Receptieo 
extremely flattering. Sleep at Coldstream. 



30 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



" Tuesday. Breakfast at Kelso— charming situa- 
tion of the town — fine bridge over the Tweed. En- 
chanting vieW3 and prospects mi both sides of the river, 
especially on the Scotch side. * * Visit Roxbury 
Talace— fine situation of it. Ruins of Roxbury Castle 
— a holly-bush growing where James II. was acciden- 
tally killed by the bursting of a cannon. A small old 
religious ruin, and a fine old garden planted by the 
religious, rooted out and destroyed by a Hottentot, a 
maitre d'/iotel of the Duke's— Climate and soil of 
Berwickshire and even Roxburyshire, superior to Ayr- 
shire — bad roads — turnip and sheep husbandry, their 
great improvements. * * * Low markets, conse- 
quently lowlands — magnificence of farmers arid farm- 
houses. Come up the Tiviul, and up the Jed to Jed- 
burgh to lie, and so wish myself good night. 

" Wednesday. Breakfast with Mr. Pair. • * * 
Charming romantic situation of Jedburgh, with gar- 
dens and orchards, intermingled among the houses and 
'.he ruins of a once magnificent cathedral. All the 
towns here have the appearance of old rude grandeur, 
but extremely idle. —Jed, a fine romantic little river. 
Dined with Capt. Rutherford, * " " return to Jed- 
burgh. Walk up the Jed with some ladies to be shown 
Love lane, and Blackburn, two fairy scenes. Introduc- 
ed to Mr. Potts, writer, and to Mr. Sommerville, the 
clergyman of the parish, a man, and a gentleman, but 
sadly addicted to punning. 



"Jedburgh, Saturday. Was presented by. the ma 
gistrates wiih the freedom of the town. 

" Took farewell to Jedburgh with some melancholy 
sensations. 

" Monday, May \±th, Kelso. Dine with the fann- 
er's club—all gentlemen talking of high matters— each 
of them keeps a hunter from 3(V. to 507. value, and at- 
tends the fox-hunting club in the country. Go out 
with Mr. Ker, one of the club, and a friend of Mr. 
Ainslie's, to sleep. In his mind and manners, Mr. Ker 
is astonishingly like my dear old friend Robert Muir— 
every thing in his house elegant. He offers to accom 
pany me in my English tour, 

" Tuesday. Dine with Sir Alexander Don : a very 
wet day. * ' * Sleep at Mr. Ker's again, and set 
out next day for Melross— visit Dryburgh, a fine old 
ruined abbey, by the way. Cross the Leader, and come 
up the Tweed to Melross. Dine there, and visit that 
far-famed glorious ruin— Come to Selkirk up the banks 
ofEttrick. The whole country hereabouts, both on 
Tweed and Eltrick, remarkably stony." 



Having spent three weeks in exploring this interest- 
ing scenery, Burns crossed over into Northumberland. 
Mr. Ker, and Mr. Hood, two gentlemen with whom 
he had become acquainted in the course of bis tour, 
accompanied him. He visited Alnwick Castle, the 
princely seat of the Duke of Northumberland; the 
hermitage and old castle of Warksworlh ; Morpeth, 
and Newcastle. —In this last town he spent two days, 
and then proceeded to the south-west by Hexham and 
Wardrue, to Carlisle. --After spending a day at Car- 
lisle with his friend Mr. Mitchell, he returned into 
Scotland, and at Annan his journal terminates ab 
ruptly. 

Of the various persons with whom he became ac 
quainted in the course of this journey, he has, 



of the Tiviot, our bard should find nymphs that were 
beautiful, is what might be confidently presumed. -- 
Two of these are particularly described iu his journal. 
But it does not appear that the scenery, or its inhabi- 
tants, produced any effort of his muse, as was to have 
been wished and expected. From Annan, Burns pro- 
ceeded to Dumfries, and thence through Sanquhar, to 
Massed, near Mauchline, in Ayrshire, where he arriv- 



ed about the 8th of June, 1787, after a long absence a. 
six busy and eventful months. It will easily be con- 
ceived with what pleasure and pride he was received 
by his mother, his brothers, and sisters, lie had left 
them poor, and comparatively friendless: he returned 
to them high in public estimation, and easy in his cir- 
cumstances. He returned to them unchanged in his 
aident affections, and ready to share with them to '.he 
uttermost farthing, the pittance that lor tune had be- 
stowed. 

Having remained with them a few days, he pro- 
ceeded again to Edinbnrgh, and immediately set out 
on a journey to the Highlands. Of this tour no parti- 
culars have been found among his manuscripts. A 
letter to his friend Mr. Ainslie, dated Arrachas, near 
Crochniibas, by Lochleaiy,Juiie '28, 1787, commences 
as follows : 

"I write you this on my tour through a country 
where savage streams tumble over savage mountains, 
thinly overspread with savage flocks, which starvingly 
support as savage inhabitants. My last stage was In- 
verary — to morrow night 's stage Dumbarton. I ought 
sooner to have answered your kind letter, but you know 
I am a man of many sins. 

Tart ef a letter from our Bard to a friend. gi#- 
ing some account of his journey, has been communi- 
cated to the Editor since the publication of the last edi- 
tion. The reader will be amused with the following 
extract. 

" On our return, at a Highland gentleman's hospi- 
table mansion, we fell in with a merry party, and 
danced till the ladies left us, at three in the morning. 
Our dancing was none of the French or English insi- 
pid formal movements ; the ladies sung Scotch songs 
like angels, at intervals ; then we flew at Bab at the 
Browst'er, Tul/ochgon.m, Loch Erroch side,' &c. 
like midges sporting in the mottie sun, or craws prog- 
nosticating a storm in a hairst day. — When the dear 
lasses left us we ranged round the bowl till the good- 
fellow hour of six ; exceptafew minutes that we went 
out to pay our devotions to the glorious lamp of day 
peeping over the towering top oi Benlomond. We all 
kneeled ; our worthy landlord's son held the bowl ; 
each man a full glass in his hand ; and I , as priest, re- 
peated some rhyming nonsense, like Thomas -a-Rhy- 
mer's prophesies I suppose. — After a small refresh- 
ment of the gifts of Sormius, we proceeded to spend the 
day on Lochlomond, and reached Dumbarton in the 
evening. We dined at another good fellow's house, 
and consequently pushed the bottle ; when we went 
out to mount our hoises we found ourselves " No vera 
fou but gaylie yet." My two friends and I rode sober- 
ly down the Loch side, till by came a Highlandman at 
the gallop, on a tolerable good horse, but which had 
never known the ornaments of iron or leather. We 
scorned tobeout galloped by a Highlandman, sooffwe 
started, whip and spur. My companions, though 
seemingly gayly mounted, fell sadly astern; but my 
old mare, Jenny Geddes, one of the Rosinate family, 
she strained past the Highlandman in spite of all his 
efforts, with the hair-halter: just as 1 was passing 
him, Donald wheeled his horse, as if to cross before me 
to mar my progress, when down came his horse, and 
threw his rider'3 breekless a— e in a dipt hedge ; and 
down came Jenny Geddes over all, and my hardship 
between her and the Highlandman 's horse. Jenny 
Geddes trode over me with such cautious reverence, 
that matters were not so bad as might well have been 
expected ; so 1 came off with a few cuts and bruises, 
and a thorough resolution to be a pattern of sobriety 
for the future. 

" I have yet fixed on nothing with respect to the se- 
rious business of life. I am, just as usual, a rhyming, 
mason making, raking, aimless, idle fellow. How- 
ever I shall somewhere have a farm soon. I was going 
to say, a wife too ; but that must never be my blessea 
lot. I am but a younger son of the house of Parnas- 
sus.and like other younger sons ofgreat families, 1 may 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



31 



intrigue, if I choose to run all risks, but must not 
marry. 

" I am afraid I have almost ruined one source, the J 
principal one indeed, of my former happiness ; that | 
eternal propensity I always had to fall in love. My 
Heart no more glows with feverish rapture. 1 have no 
paradaisical evening interviews stolen from the restless 
r.ares and prying inhabitants of this weary world. I 
have only * * • *. This last is'one of your distant 
acquaintances, has a fine figure, and elegant manners ; 
and in the train of some great folks whom you know, 
has seen the politest quarters in Europe. I do like her 
a good deal ; but what piques me is her conduct at the 
commencement of our acquaintance. I frequently visit- 
ed her when I was in — — , and after passing regularly 
the intermediate degrees between the distant for- 
mal bow and the familiar grasp round the waist, 1 
ventured in my careless way to talk of friendship in 

rather ambiguous terms ; and after her return to , 

1 wrute to her in the same style. Miss, construing my 
words farther I suppose than ever 1 intended, flew oft" 
in a tangent of female dignity and reserve, like a raoun 
tain lark in an April morning : and wrote me an an- 
swer which measured me out very completely what an 
immense way I had to travel before I could reach 
the climate of her favour. But I am an old hawk 
at the sport ; I wrote her such a cool, deliberate, 
prudent reply, as brought my bird from her aerial 
towerings, pop down at my fool like corporal Trim's 
bat. 

" As for the rest of my acts, and my wars, and 
all my wi3e sayings, and why my mare was called 
lenny Geddes ; they shall be recorded in a few weeks 
hence, at Linlithgow, in the chronicles of your memo- 
ry, by 

"ROBERT BURNS." 



From this journey Burns returned to his friends in 
Ayrshire, with whom he spent the month of July, re- 
newing his friendships and extending his acquaintance 
throughout the country, where he was now very gen- 
erally known and admired. In August he again visit- 
ed Edinburgh, whence he undertook another journey 
towards the middle of this month, in company with 
Mr. M. Adair, now Dr. Adair, of Harrowgate, of 
which this gentleman has favoured us with the follow- 
ing account. 

" Burns and 1 left Edinburgh together in August, 
1787. We rode by Linlithgow and Carron, to Stirling. 
We visited the iron works at Carron, with which the 
poet was forcibly struck. The resemblance between 
that place, and its inhabitants, to the cave of Cyclops, 
which must have occurred to every classic reader, pre- 
sented itself to Burns. At Stirling the prospects from 
the castle strongly interested him ; in a'former visit to 
which, his national feelings had been powerfully ex- 
cited by the ruinous and roofless state of the hall in 
which the Scottish parliaments had been held. His 
indignation had vented itself in some imprudent, but 
not unpoetical lines, which had given much offence, 
and which he took this opportunity of erasing, by break- 
ing the pane of the window at the inn on which they 
were written. 



"At Stirling we met with a company of travellers 
from Edinburgh, among whom was a character in 
many respects" congenial with that of Burns. This 
was Nicol, one of the teachers of the High Grammar- 
School at Edinburgh— the same wit and "power of con- 
versation ; the same fondness for convivial society, and 
thoughtlessness of to-morrw, characterized both.-- 
Jacobitical principles in politics were common to both 
of them; and these have been suspected, since the re- 
volution of France, to have given place in each, 
to opinions apparently opposite. I regret that I 
have preserved no memorabilia of their conversation, 
either on this or on other occasions, when I happened 
to .neet them together. Many songs were sung, which 
I mention for the sake of observing, that when Burns 
was called on in his turn, he was accustomed, instead 
V singing, to recite one or the other of his own shorter 



poems, with a tone and emphasis, which, though not 
correct or harmonious, were impressive and pathetic. 
! This he did on the present occasion. 

" Prom Stirling we went next morning through the 
romantic and fertile vale of Devon to Harvieston, in 
Clackmannanshire, then inhabited by Mrs. Hamilton, 
with the younger part of whose family Burns nad been 
previously acquainted. He introduced me to the family, 
and there was formed my first acquaintance with Mrs. 
Hamilton's eldest daughter, to whom I have been mar- 
ried for nine years. Thus I was indebted to Burns 
for a connexion from which I derived and expect fur- 
ther to derive much happiness. 

,: During a residence of about ten days at Harvie- 
ston, we made excursions to visit various parts of tiie 
surrounding scenery, inferior to none in Scotland, in 
beauty, sublimity, and romantic interest ; particularly 
Castle Campbell, the ancient seat of the family of Ar- 
gyle : and the famous Cataract of the Devon ; called 
the Caldron Linn; and the Rumbling Bridge, a sin- 
gle broad arch, thrown by the Devil, if tradition is to 
be believed, across the river, at about the height of a 
hundred feet above its bed. I am surprised that none 
of these scenes should have called forth an exertion of 
Burns's muse. But i doubt if he had much taste for 
the picturesque. I well remember, that the ladies at 
Harvieston, who accompanied us on this jaunt, ex- 
pressed their disappointment at his not expressing in 
more glowing language, Ins impressions of the Caldron 
Linn scene, certainly highly sublime, and somewhat 
horrible. 

" A visit to Mrs. Bruce, of Clackmannan, a lady a» 
bove ninety, the lineal descendant of that race which 
gave the Scottish throne its brightest ornament, inter- 
ested his feelings more powerfully. This venerable 
dame, with characteristical dignity, informed me on 
my observing that 1 believed she was descended from 
the family of Robert Brure, that Robert Bruce was 
sptuug from her family. Though almost deprived of 
speech by a paralytic affection, she preserved her hos- 
pitality and urbanity. She was in the possession of 
the hero's helmet and two-handed sword, with which 
she conferred on Burns and myself the honour of knight- 
hood, remarking, that sbs had a belter right to confer 
that title than some people. ' * You will of course 
conclude that the old lady's political tenets were as 
Jacobitical as the poet's a conformity which contribu- 
ted not a little to the cordiality of our reception and 
entertainment. --She gave us as her first toast after 
dinner, Awa' Uncos, or Away with the Strangers. -- 
Who these strangers were, you will readily under- 
stand. Mis. A. corrects me by saying it should be 
Hoai, or Hooi i^ncos, a sound used by shepherds to di- 
rect their dogs to drive away the sheep. 

"We returned to Edinburgh by Kinross (on the 
shore of Lochleven) and (iueen's-ferry. I am inclined 
to think Burns knew nothing of poor Michael Bruce, 
who was then alive at Kinross, or had died there a 
short while before. A meeting between tne bards, or 
visit to the deserted cottage and early grave of poor 
ruce, would have been highly interesting." 

" At Dunfermline we visited the ruined abbey and 
the abbey church, now consecrated to Presbyleriau 
worship. Here I mounted the cully stool, or stool of 
a penitent for fornication ; while Burns from the pul- 
pit addressed to me a ludicrous reproof and exhorta- 
tion, parodied from that which had been delivered to 
himself in Ayrshire, where he had, as he assured me, 
once been one of seven who mounted the seat o/ shame 
together. 

" In the church-yard two broad flag-stones marked 
the grave of Robert Bruce, for whose memory Burns 
had more than common veneration. He knelt and kiss- 
ed the stone with sacred fervour, and heartily (sum 
utmos erat) execrated the worse than Gothic neglect o' 
the first of Scottish heroes. "t 

* Bruce died some years before. E. 
t Extracted from a letter of Dr. Adair to the Editor. 



32 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



The surprise expressed by Dr. Adair, in his excel- 
lent letter, that the romantic scenery of the Devon 
should have failed to call forth any exertion of the po- 
et's muse, is not in ils nature singular ; and the dis- 
appointment felt at his not expressing in more glowing 
language his emotions on the sight of the famous cata- 
ract of that river, is similar 10 what was felt by the 
friends of Burns on other occasions of the same nature. 
Yet the inference that Dr. Adair seems inclined to 
draw from it, that he had little taste for the picturesque, 
might be questioned, even if it stood uncontioverled by 
other evidence. The muse of Burns was in a high de- 
gree capricious ; she came uncalled, and often refused 
to attend at his bidding. Ofall the numerous subjects 
suggested to him by his friends and correspondents, 
there is scarcely one that he adopted. The very ex- 
pectation that a particular occasion would excite the 
energies of fancy, if communinated to Burns, seem- 
ed in him as in other poets, destructive of the effect ex- 
pected. Hence perhaps may be explained, why the 
banks of the Devon and of the Tweed form no part of 
the subjects of his song. 

A similar train of reasoning may perhaps explain 
the want of emotion with which he viewed the Cal- 
dron Linn. Certainly there are no affections of the 
mind more deadened by the influence of previous ex- 
pectation, than those arising from the sight of natural 
objects, and more especially of objects of grandeur. 
Minute descriptions ot scenes, of a sublime nature, 
should never be given to those who are about to view 
them, particularly if they are persons of great strength 
and sensibility of imagination. Language seldom or 
never conveys an adequate idea of such objects, but 
in the mind of a great poet it may excite a picture 
that far transcends them. The imagination of Burns 
might form a cataract, in comparison with which the 
Caldron Linn should seem the purling of a rill, and 
even the mighty falls of Niagara, an humble cascade.* 

Whether these suggestions may assist in explaining 
our Bard's deficiency of impression on the occasion 
referred to, or whether it ought rather to be imputed 
to some pre-occupation, or indisposition of mind, we 
presume not to decide ; but that he was in general 
feelingly alive to the beautiful or sublime in scenery, 
may be supported by irresistible evidence. It is true 
this pleasure was greatly heightened in his mind, as 
might be expected, when combined with moral emo- 
tions of a kind with which it happily unites. That 
under this association Burns contemplated the scenery 
of the Devon witfc the eye of a genuine poet, some 
lines which he wrote at this very period, may bear 
witness.t 

The different journeys already mentioned did not 
satisfy the curiosity of Burns. About the beginning of 

•This reasoning might be extended, with some 
modifications, to objects of sight of every kind. To 
have formed before hand a distinct picture in the 
mind, of any interesting person or thing, generally 
lessens the pleasure of the first meeting with them. 
Though this picture be not superior, or even equal to 
the^reahty, still it can never be expected to be an ex- 
act resemblance ; and the disappointment felt at 
finding the object something different from what was 
expected, interrupts and diminishes the emotions 
that would otherwise be produced. In such cases, 
the Becond or third interview gives more pleasure 
than the first. — See the Elements of the Philosophy 
of the Human Mind, by Mr. Stewart. Such pub- 
lications as The Guide to the Lakes, where every 
scene is described in the most minute manner, and 
sometimes with considerable exaggeration of lan- 
guage, are in this point of view objectionable. 

t See the song beginning, 
•' How pleasant the banks of the clear winding De- 



September, he again set out from Edinburgh en a 
more extended tour to the Highlands, in company 
with Mr. Nicol, with whom he had now contracted a 
particular intimacy, which lasted during the remain- 
der of his life. Mr. Nicol was of Dumfriesshire, of a 
descent equally humble with our poet. Like him, he 
rose by the strength of his talents, and fell by the 
strength of his passions. He died in the summer of 
1797. Having received the elements of a classical 
instruction at his parish-school, Mr. Nicol made a very 
rapid and singular proficiency ; and by early undei ta- 
king the office of an instructor himself, he acquired 
the means of entering himself at the University of 
Edinburgh. There he was first a student of theology, 
then a student of medicine, and was afterwards em- 
ployed in the assistance and instruction of graduates 
in medicine, in those parts of their exercises in which 
the Latin language is employed. In this situation lie 
was the contemporary and rival of the celebrated Dr. 
Brown, whom he resembled in the particulars of his 
history, as well as in the leading features of his char- 
acter. The office of assistant teacher in the High- 
school being vacant, it was, as usual, filled up by 
competition ; and in the face of some prejudices, and, 
perhaps, of some well-founded objections, Mr. Nicol, 
by superior learning, carried it from all the other 
candidates. This office he filled at the period of 
which we speak. 

It is to be lamented that an acquaintance with the 
writers of Greece and Rome, does not always supply 
an original want of taste and correctness in manueia 
and conduct ; and where it fails of this effect, it 
sometimes inflames the native pride of temper, which 
treats with disdain those delicacies in which it has 
not learned to excel. It was thus with the fellow- 
traveller of Burns. Formed by nature in a model of 
great strength, neither his person nor his manner* 
had any tincture of taste or elegance ; and his coarse- 
ness was not compensated by that romantic sensibility, 
and those towering flights of imagination which dis- 
tinguished the conversation of Burns, in the blaze >•( 
whose genius all the deficiencies of his manners were 
absorbed and disappeared. 

Mr. Nicol and our poet travelled in a postchaise, 
which they engaged for the journey ; and, passing 
through the heart of the Highlands, stretched north- 
wards, about ten miles beyond Inverness. There 
they bent their course eastward, across the island, 
and returned by the shore of the German sea to Edin- 
burgh. In the course of this tour, some particulars of 
which will be found in a letter of our bard, No. XXX, 
they visited a number of remarkable scenes, and the 
imagination of Burns was constantly excited by the 
wild and sublime scenery through which he passed. 
Of this several pro.fs may be found in the poems for- 
merly printed.* Of the history of one of these 
poems, The Humble Petition of Bruar Water, and 
of the bard's visit to Athole House, some particulars 
will be found in No XXIX; and by the favour of 
Mr. Walker of I'erth, then residing in the family of 
the Duke of A thole, we are enabled to give the follow- 
ing additional account : 

" On reaching Blair, he sent me notice of his arri- 
val (as I had been previously acquainted with him,) 
and I hastened to meet him at the inn. The Duke to 
whom he brought a letter of introduction, was from 
home ; but the Dutchess, being informed of his arrival, 
gave him an invitation to sup and sleep at Athole 
House. He accepted the invitation ; but as the hour 
of supper was at some distance, begged ' would in 
the interval he his guide through the grounds. It was 
already growing dark ; yet the softened though faint 
and uncertain view of their beauties, which the moon - 

* See " Lilies on scaring some water-fowl in Loch- 
Turit, a wild scene among the hills of Ochtertyre." 
" Lines written with a Pencil over the Chimney- 
piece, in the Inn at Kenmore, Taymouth." " Lines 
written with a pencil standing by the fall of Fyers 
near Locbness." 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



33 



Bght afforded US; seemed exactly suited to the state of happiest in his life. He was warmly invited to pro 
his feelings at ihe time. 1 had often, like others, ex- i long his flay, but sacrificed his inclinations to his eu- 

— gagcment with Mr. Nicol ; which is the more to be 
regretted, as he would otherwise have been introduced 



perienceri the pleasures which arise from the sublime 
or elegant landscape, but 1 never saw those feelings so 
intense as in Burns. When we reached a rustic hut 
on the river Tilt, where it is cverhung by a woody 
precipice, from which there is a noble water-fall, he 
threw himself on the heathy seat, and gave himself up 
io a tender, abstracted, and voluptuous enthusiasm 
of imagination. I cannot help thinking it might have 
been here that he conceived the idea of the following 
lines, which he afterwards introduced into his poem 
on Bntar Water, when only fancying such a combina- 
tion of objects as were now present to his eye. 

Or, by the reaper's nightly beam, 
Mild, chequering through the trees, 

Rave to my darkly-dashing siream, 
Hoarse-swelling on the breeze. 

" It was with much difficulty I prevailed on him to 
quit this spot, and to be introduced in proper time to 
supper. 

" My curiosity was great to see how he would con- 
duct himself in company so different from whai he had 
been accustomed to.* His manner was unembar- 
rassed, plain, and firm. He appeared to have com- 
plete reliance on his own native good sense for direct- 
ing his behaviour. He seemed at once to perceive and 
to appreciate what was due to the company and to 
himself, and never to forget a proper respect for the 
•eparale species of dignity belonging to each. He did 
not arrogate conversation, but. when led into it, he 
spoke wiih ease, propriety, and manliness, lie tried 
to exert his abilities, because he knew it was ability 
alone gave him a title to he there. The Duke's tine 
young family attracted much of his admiration 
drank their healths as honest men a?ul bonny lasses, 
an idea which was much applauded by the company, 
and with which he very felicitously closed his poem, f 

" Next day I took a ride with him through some of 
the most romantic parts of that neighbourhood, and 
was highly gratified by his conversation. As a speci- 
men of his happiness of conception and strength of 
expression, 1 will mention a remark which he made 
on his fellow-traveller, who was walking at the time'a 
few paces before us. He was a man of a robust but 
clumsy person ; and while Burns was expressing to 
me the value he entertained for him on account of his 
vigorous talents, although they were clouded at times 
by coarseness of manners ; 'in short,' he added, 'his 
mind is like his body, he has a confounded strong, in- 
kneed sort of a soul.' 

" Much attention was paid to Burns both before and 
after the Duke's return, of which he was perfectly 
sensible, without being vain ; and at his departure I 
recoiumeudtd to him, as the most appropriate return 
he could make, to write some descriptive verses on any 
of the scenes with which he had been so much de 
lighted. After leaving Blair, he, by the Duke's 
advice, visited the Falls of Bru ir, and in a few 
days 1 received a letter from Iverness, with the verses 
enclosed."! 

It appears that the impression made by our poet on 
the noble family of Athole, was in. a high degree favour- 
able ; it is certain he was charmed with the reception 
he received from them, and he often mentioned the 
two days he spent at Athole House as amongst the 

* In the preceding winter, Burns had been in com- 
pany of the highest rank in Edinburgh ; but this de- 
icription of his manners is perfectly applicable to his 
first appearance iu such society. 

1 See The Humble Petition of Bruar Water. 

* Extract of a letter from Mr. Walker to Mr. Ctm- 
■Jrujham. See Letter No. XXIX. 

I 



to Mr. Duudas (then daily expected on a visit to the 
Duke,) a circumstance which mighthavehad a favour- 
able influence on Burns's future fortunes. At Athole 
House he met, for the first time, Mr. Graham of Fintry, 
to whom he was afterwards indebted for the office in 
the Excise. 

The letters and poems which he addressed to Mr 
Graham, bear testimony of his sensibility, and jus- 
tify the supposition, that he would not have been de- 
ficient in gratitude had he been elevated to a situa- 
tion better suited to his disposition and to his tal- 
ents.* 

A few days after leavingBlair of Athole, our poet and 
his fellow traveller arrived at Fochabers. In the 
course of the preceding winter Burns had been intro- 
duced 1.0 the Dutchess of Gordon at Edinburgh, and 
presuming on his acquaintance, he proceeded to Gor- 
don-Castle, leaving Mr. Nicol at the inn ill the village. 
At the castle our poet was received with the utm.si 
hospitality and kindness, and the family being about 
to sit down to dinner, he was invited to lake his place 
at table as a matter of course. This invitation he ac- 
cepted, and after drinking a few glasses of wine, he 
rose up, and proposed to withdraw. On being pressed 
to stay, he mentioned for the first time, his engagement 
with his tellow- traveller : and his noble host offering to 
send a servant to conduct Mr. Nicol to the castle, 
Burns insisted on undertaking that office himself, lie 
was, however, accompanied by a gentleman, a parti- 
cular acquaintance of the Doke,by whom the invita- 
tion was delivered in all the forms of politeness. The 
invitation came too late; the pride of Nicol was in- 
flamed in a high degree of passion, lie had ordered 
the horses to be put to the carriage, being determined to 
proceed on his journey alone ; and they found him 
parading the streets of Fochabers, bofore the door of 
the inn, venting his anger on the postillion, for the 
slowness with which he obeyed his commands. As no 
explanation nor entreaty could change the purpose of 
his fellow-traveller, oar poet was reduced to the ne- 
cessity of separating from him entirely, or of instantly 
proceeding with him on their journey. He chose the 
last of these alternatives ; and seating himself beside 
Nicol in the post chaise with mortification and regret, 
he tinned his back on Gordon Castle where he had 
promised himself some happy days. Sensible, how- 
ever, of the great kindness of the noble family, he 
made the best return iu his power, by the poem be- 
ginning, 

" Streams that glide in orient plains. "t 

Burns remained at. Edinburgh during the greater 
part of the winter, 1787-8, and again entered into the 
society and dissipation of that metropolis. It appears 
that on the 31st day of Dectinber, he attended a meet- 
ing to celebrate the birth day of the lineal descendant 
of the Scottish race of kings, the late unfortunate 
1 rince Charles Edward. Whatever might have been 
the wish or purpose of the original iustUutors of ti.is 
annual meeting, there is no reason to suppose that the 
gentlemen of whomit was at this time composed were 
not perfectly loyal to the King on the throne. It is not 
to be conceived that they entertained any hope of, any 
wish for, the restoration' of the house cl Stuart ; but, 
over their sparkling wine, they indulged the generous 
feelings which the recollection of "fallen greatness is 
calculated to inspire ; and commemorated the heroic 
valour which strove to sustain it in vain— valour wor- 
thy of a nobler cause, and a happier fortune. On this 
occasioii our bard took upon himself the office of poet- 

* See the first EpUtle to Mr. Graham, soliciting an 
employment in the Excise, Letter No. LV1. and his 
second Epistle. 

* This information is extracted from a letter of Df. 
Couper of Fochabers, to the Editor, 

2 



34 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



.aorraate, and produced an ode, which though deficient 
in Uie complicated rhythm and polished versification 
itoa. sach compositions require, might on a fair compe- 
x..on, where energy of feelings and of expression were 
alone in question, have won the butt of Malmsey from 
the real laureate of that day. 

The following extractB may serve as a specimen : 



False flatterer, Hope, away ! 
Nor think to lure us as in days of yore : 

We solemnize this sorrowing natal day, 
To prove our loyal truth — we care no more : 

4nd owing Heaven's mysterious sway, 
Submissive, low, adore. 

Ye honoured, mighty dead ! 
Who nobly perished iu the glorious cause, 
Your King, your country, and her laws ! 

From great Dundee, who smiling victory led, 
And fell a martyr in her arms, 
<What breast of northern ice but warms?) 

To bold Balmerino's undying name, 

Whose soul of fire, lighted at Heaven's high 
flame, 
Deserves the proudest wreath departed heroes claim.* 

Nor unrevenged your fate shall be, 

It only lags the fatal hour ; 
Your blood shall with incessant cry 

Awake at the last the unsparing power. 
As from the cliff, with thundering course 

The snowy ruin smokes along, 
With doubling speed and gathering force, 
Till deep it crashing whelms the cottage in the vale I 
So Vengeance * * * 

In relating the incidents of our poet's life in Edin- 
burgh, we ought to have mentioned the sentiments of 
respect and sympathy with which he traced out the 
grave ot Ins predecessor Ferguson, over whose ashes in 
the Canongate church-yard, he obtained leave to erect 
an humble monument, 'which will lie viewed by reflect- 
ing minds with no common interest, and which will 
awake in the bosom of kindred genius, many a high 
emotion. t Neither should we pass over the continued 
friendship he experienced from a poet then living, the 
amiable and accomplished BMcklock.— To his encour- 
aging advise ii was owing (as has already appeared) 
that Burns instead ot emigrating to the West Indies, 
repaired to Edinburgh. He received hiin there with all 
the ardour of affectionate admiration ; he eagerly in- 
troduced him to the respectable circle of his friends ; 
he consulted his interest ; he blazoned his fame ; he 
lavished jpon him all the kindness of a generous and 
feeling heart, into which nothing selfish or envious 
ever found admittance. Among the friends to whom 
he intioduced Burns was Mr. Uainsay of Ochtertyre, 

• In the the first part of this ode there is some beau- 
tiful imagery, which the poet afterwards interwove in 
a happier manner in the Chevalier's Lament. (See 
Le".er, No. LXV.) But if there were no other rea- 
w.ns for omitting to print the entire poem, the want of 
originality would be sufficient. A considerable part of 
t is a kind of rant, for which indeed precedent may be 
eiUid in various other birthday odes, but with which 
it is impoEsible to go along. 

t See Letters No. XIX. and XX. where the Epi- 
taph will be found. &c. 



to whom our poet paid a visit in the Autuiin of 1787, at 
his delightful retirement in the neighbourhood of Stir- 
ling, and on the banks of the Teith. Of bis visit we 
have the following particulars : 

" I have been in the company of many men of gen- 
ius." says Mr. liamsay, "some of them poets; but 
never witnessed luch flashes of intellectual brightness 
as from him, ih« impulse of the moment, sparks ol 
celestial fire ! 1 never was more delighted, therefore, 
than witli hi3 company for two day*, tete-a-tete. In a 
mixed company 1 should have made little of him ; for, 
in the gamester's phrase, he did not always know when 
to play oft' and when to play on., * * * I not only 
proposed to him the writing of a play similar to the 
Gentle S/ieph.rd, qualm decet esse sororem, but 
Sco/tish Gj rgics a subject which Thompson has by 
no means exhausted in his Seasons. What beautiful 
landscapes of rural life and manners might not have 
been expected from a pencil so faithful and forcible as 
his, which could have exhibited scenes as familiar and 
interesting as those in the Gentle Shepkerd, which 
every one who knows our swain in their unadulterat- 
ed state, instantly recognises as true to nature. But 
to have executed either of these plans, steadiness and 
abstraction from company were wanting, not tal- 
lents. When I asked him whether the Edinburgh 
Literati had mended hia poems by their criticisms, 
' Sir,' said he, ' these gentlemen remind me of some 
spinsters in my country, who spin their thread so 
line that it is neilherfit for werft nor woof.' Hesaid 
he had not changed a word except one to please Dr. 
Blair.'* 

Having settled with his publisher. Mr. Creech, in 
February, 1788, Burns found himself master of nearly 
five hundred pounds, after discharging all his expen- 
ses. Two hundred pounds he immediately advanced 
to his brother Gilbert, who had taken upon himself 
the support of their aged mother, and was struggling 
with many difficulties in the farm of Mossgiel. With 
the remainder of this sum, and some farther eventful 
profits from his poems, he determined on settling him- 
self for life in the occupation of agriculture, and took 
from Mr. Miller, of Dalswinton, the farm of Ellis- 
land, on the banks of the river Nith, six miles above 
Dumfries, on which he entered at Whitsunday, 1788. 
Having been previously recommended to the Board of 
Excise, his name had been put on the list of candi- 
dates for the humble office of a gauger or exciseman ; 
and he immediately applied to acquiring the informa- 
tion necessary for filling that office, when the honoura- 
ble Board might judge it proper to employ him. He 
expected to be called into service in the district in 
which his farm was situated, and vainly hoped to 
unite with success the labours of the farmer with the 
duties of the exciseman. 

When Burns had in this manner arranged his plans 
for futurity, his generous heart turned to the object 
of his most ardent attachment, and listening to no 
considerations but those of honour and affection, he 
joined with her in a public declaration of marriage, 
thus legalizing their union, and rendering it permanent 
for life. 

Before Burns was known in Edinburgh, a specimen 
of ins poetry bad recommended him to Mr. Miller of 
Dalswinton. Understanding that he intended to re- 
sume the life of a farmer, Mr. Miller had invited him, 
in the spring of 1787, to view his estate in Nithsdale, 
offering him at the same time the choice of any of hia 
farms out of lease, at such a rent as Burns and his 
friends might judge proper. It was not in the nature 
of Bums to take an undue advantage of the liberality 
of Mr. Miller. He proceeded in this business, howev- 

* Extract of a letter from Mr. Ramsay to the Edi- 
tor. This incorrigibility of Burns extended, however, 
only to his poems printed before he arrived in Edin- 
burgh ; for iu regard to his unpublished poems, he was 
amenable to criticism, of which many proofs might be 
given. See some remarks on this subject, in the Ap 
peitdix. 



THE LIFE OF BURxNS. 



35 



*r, With more than usual deliberation. Having made 
thoice of the farm of Ellislaud, he employed two ol his 
friends, skilled in the value of land, to examine it, 
and with their approbation offered a rent to Mr. Mil- 
ler, which was immediately accepted. It was not 
convenient for Mrs. Burns to remove immediately 
from Ayrshire, and our poet therefore took tip his res- 
idence alone at Ellisland, to prepare for the reception 
of his wife and children, who joined him towards the 
end of the year. 

The situation in which Burns now found himself, 
was calculated to awaken reflection. The different 
steps he had of late taken, were in their nature highly 
important, and might be said to have in some mea 
sure, fixed his destiny. He had become a husband 
and a father ; he had engaged in the management of 
a considerable farm, a difficult and laborious underta- 
king ; in his succ-esB the happiness of his family was 
involved ; it was time, therefore, to abandon the 
gayety and dissipation of which he had been too much 
enamoured ; to ponder seriously on the past, and to 
form virtuous resolutions respecting the future. That 
8ucn was actually the state of his mind, the following 
extract from his common-place book may bear wit 
oess : 

Ellisland., Sunday, 14th June, 1788. 
" This is now the third day that I have been in this 
country. 'Lord, what is man!' What a bustling 
little bundle of passions, appetites, ideas, and fancies ! 
and what a capricious kind of existence he has here ! 
* * * There is indeed an elsewhere, where, as 
Thomson sa.ys, virtue sole survives. 

' Tell us ye dead 
Will none of you in pity disclose the secret 
What 'tis you are, and we must shortly be 't 

A little time 

Will make us wise as you are, and as close.' 

" I am such a coward in life, so tired of the service, 
that I would almost at any time, with Milton's Adam, 
' gladly lay me in my mother's lap, and be at peace.' 

" But a wife and children bind me to struggle with 
the stream, till some sudden squall shall overset the 
silly vessel ; or in the listless return of years, its own 
craziness reduce it to a wreck. Farewell now to those 
giddy follies, those varnished vices, which, though 
half sanctified by the bewitching levity of wit and hu- 
mour, are at best but thriftless idling with lbs precious 
current of existence ; nay, often poisoning the whole, 
that, like the plains of Jericho, the water is nought, 
and the ground barren, and nothing short of a super- 
naturally gifted Elisha can ever after heal the evils. 

" Wedlock, the circumstance that buckles me hard- 
est to care, if virtue and religion were to be any thing 
with me but names, was what in a few seasons T must 
have resolved on ; in my present situation it was abso- 
lutely necessary. Humanity, generosity, honest pride 
of character, justice to my own happiness for after- 
life, so far as it could depend (which it surely will a 
great deal) on internal peace ; all these joined their 
warmest suffrages, their most powerful solicitations, 
wi.h a rooted attachment, to urge the step I have ta- 
ken. Nor have I any reason on her part to repent it. 
1 can fancy how, but have never seen where, I could 
have made a better choice. Come, then, let me act 
up to my favourite motto, that glorious passage in 
Young — 

" On reason build resolve, 
" That column of true majesty in man !" 

I'ntJer the impulse of these reflections, Burns imme- 
dis.e.y engaged in rebuilding the dwelling-house on 
his >arin, which, in the state he found it, was inade- 
quate to the accommodation of his family. On this 
occasion , he himself resumed a t times the occupation of 
a ls«b<Hirer, and found neither his strength nor his 
•k:. mpaired. Pleased with surveying the grounds 
Was about to cultivate, and with the rearing of a 



building that should give shelter to his wife and 
children, and. as he fondly hoped, to his own gray 
hairs, sentiments of independence buoyed up hi* 
mind, pictures of domestic content and peace rose on 
his imagination ; and a few days passed away, as he 
himsel: informs us, the most tranquil, if not the hap- 
piest, which he had ever experienced.* 

It is to be lamented that at this critical period of his 
life, our poet was without the society of his wife and 
children. A great change had taken place in his situ- 
ation ; his old habits were broken : and the new cir» 
cumstances ,n which he was placed, were calculated 
to give a new direction to his thoughts and conduct, t 
But his application to the cares and labours of his 
farm, was interrupted by several visits to his family 
in Ayrshire ; and as the distance was too great for a 
single day's journey, he generally spent a night at an 
inn on the road. On such occasions he sometimes 
tell into company, and forgot the resolutions he had 
formed. In a little while temptation assailed him 
nearer home. 

His fame naturally drew upon him the attention of 
his neighbours, and he soon formed a general ac- 
quaintance in the district in which he lived. The 
public voice had now pronounced on the subject of 
his talents ; the reception he had met with in Edin- 
burgh had given him the currency which fashion be- 
stows ; he had surmounted the prejudices arising 
from his humble biith, and he waa received at the 
table of the gentlemen of Nithsdale with welcome, 
with kindness, and even with respect. Their social 
parties too often seduced him from his rustic labour 
and his rustic fare, overthrew the unsteady fabric of 
his resolutions, and inflamed those propensities which 
temperance might have weakened, and prudence ul- 
timately suppressed.! It was not long, therefore, 
before Burns began to view his farm with dislike and 
despondence, if not with disgust. 

Unfortunately, he had for several years looked to an 
office in the Excise as a certain means of livelihood, 
should his other expectations fail. As has already 
been mentioned, he had been recommended to the 
Board of Excise, and had received the instructionos 
necessary for such a situation. He now applied to be 
employed ; and by the interest of Mr. Graham of 
Pintry, was appointed exciseman, or, as it is vul- 
garly called, ganger, of the district in which he lived 

* Animated sentiments of any kind, almost a'.ways 
gave rise in our poet to some production of his nnse 
His sentiments on this occasion were in part expressed 
by the vigorous and characteristic, though not very 
delicate song, beginning, 

" I hae a wife o' my ain, 
I'll partake wi' nae body ;" 
t Mrs. Bums was about to be confined in childbed, 
and the house at Ellisland was rebuilding. 

| The poem of The Whistle, (Poem, p. 60) cele- 
brates a Bacchanalian contest among three gentlemen 
of Nithsdale, where Burns appears as umpire. Mr 
Riddell died before our Bard, and some elegiac verse* 
to his memory will be found entitled, Sonnet on th* 
death of Robert Riddell. From him, and from all 
the members of his family, Burns received not kind- 
ness only, but friendship ; and the society he met in 
general at Friar's Carse, was calculated to improve 
his habits as well as his manners. Mr. Fergusson of 
Craigdarroch, so well known for his eloquence and 
social talents, died soon after our poet. Sir Robert 
Laurie, the third person in the drama, survives, and 
has since been engaged in a contest of a bloodier na- 
ture. Long may he live to fight the battles of bis 
country ! (1799.) 



3$ 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



Bis '*rm was fcfter Ccfc, Vi & great measure abandoned 
to servants, while he betook himself to the duties of 
his new appointment. 

He might, indeed, still be seen in the spring, direct- 
ing his plough, a labour in which he excelled; or with 
a white sheet, containing his seed corn, slung across 
his shoulders, striding with measured steps along his 
turned up furrows, and scattering the grain in the 
earth. But his farm no longer occupied the principal 
part of his care or his thoughts. It was not at Ellis- 
land that he was now in general tobe found. Mounted 
on horseback, this high-minded poet was pursuing the 
defaulters of the revenue, among the hills and vales of 
Nithsdale, his roving eye wandering over the charms 
of nature, and muttering his wayward fancies as he 
moved along. 

" I had an adventure with him in the year 1790," 
says Mr. Ramsay, of Ochtertyre, in a letter to the 
editor, when passing through Dumfriesshire, on a tour 
to the South, with Dr. Stewart, of Luss. Seeing him 
pass quickly, near Closeburn, I said to my companion, 
' that is Burns.' On coming to the inn, the hostler 
told us he would be back in a few hours to grant per- 
mits ; that where he met with any thing seizable, he 
was no better than any other ganger ; in evary thing 
else, that he was perfectly a gentleman. After leav- 
ing a note to be delivered 'o him on his return, I pro- 
ceeded to his house, being curious to see his Jean, &c. 
1 was much pleased with his uxor Sabina qualis, and 
the poet's modest mansion, so unlike the habitation of 
ordinary rustics. In the evening he suddenly bounc- 
ed in upon us, and said, as he entered, I come, to use 
the words of Shakspeare, stewed in haste. In fact he 
had ridden incredibly fast after receiving my note. 
We fell into conversation directly, and soon got into 
themare magnum of poetry. He told me that he had 
now gotten a story for a Drama, which he was to call 
Bob Manqurchan's Elshon, from a popular story of 
Robert Bruce being defeated on the water of Caern, 
when the heel of his boot having loosened in his flight , 
he applied to Robert Macquechan to fit it ; who, to 
make sure, ran his awl nine inches up the king's heel. 
We were now going on in a great rate, when Mr. 
S popped in his head, which put a stop to our dis- 
course, which had become very interesting. Yet in a 
'ittle while it was resumed ; and such was the force 
»nd versatility of the bard's genius, that he made the 

.ears run down Mr. S 's cheek, albeit unused to 

the poetic B train. * * * From that time we met no 
more, and I was grieved at the reports of him after- 
wards. Poor Burns ! we shall hardly ever see his like 
again. He was, in truth, a sort of comet in litera- 
ture, irregular in its motions, which did not do good 
proportioned tc the blaze of light it displayed." 

Tn the summer of 1791, two English gentlemen, who 
had before met u/th him in Edinburgh, paid a visit to 
tun at Ellisland. On calling at '.he house they were 
informed that he had walked out on the banks of the 
river ; anddismountingfrom theirhorses, they proceed- 
ed in search of him. On a rock that projected into the 
utream, they saw a man employed in angling, of a sin- 
gular appearance. He had a cap made of a fox's skin 
on his head, a loose great coat fixed round him by a 
belt, from which depended an enormous Highland 
oroad-sword. It was Burns. He received them with 
great cordiality, and asked them to share his humble 
dinner— an invitation which thejr accepted. On the 
table they found boiled beef, with vegetables, and bar 
ley-broth, after the manner of Scotland, of which they 
partook heartily. After dinner, the bard told them in- 
genuously that he had no wine to offer them, nothing 
Setter than Highland whiskey, a bottle of which Mre. 
Burns set on the hoard. He' produced at the same time 
bis punch-bowl made of luverary marble ; and, mix- 
ng the spirit with water and sugar, filled their glasses, 
and invited them to drink.* The travellers were in 
haste, and besides, the flavour of the whiskey to their 

* This bowl was made of the lapis ollaris, the 3tone 
of which Inverary-house is built, the mansion o{ the 
family of Argyle. 



erous poet offered them his best, and his ardent hoi 
pttality they found it impossible to resist. Burns was 
in his happiest mood, and '.he charms of his conversa- 
tion were altogether fascinating. He ranged over a, 
great variety ol topics, illuminating whatever he touch- 
ed. He related thetales of his infancy and of his youth'; 
he recited some of the gayest and some of the tender- 
est of his poems ; in the wildest of his strains of mirth, 
he threw in some touches of melancholy, and spread 
around him the electric emotions of his powerful mind. 
The Highland whiskey imptoved in its flavour; the 
marble bowl was again and again emptied and replen- 
ished ; the guests of our poets forgot the flight of time, 
and the dictates of prudence : at the hour of midnight 
they lost their way in returning to Dumfries, and could 
scarcely distinguish it when "assisted by the morning'a 
dawn.* 

Besides hi3 duties in the excise and his social plea- 
sures, other circumstances interfered with the atten- 
tion of Burns to his farm. He engaged in the formation 
of a society for purchasing and circulating booka 
among the farmers of his neighbourhood, of which he 
undertook the management ;f and he occupied him- 
self occasionally in composing songs for the muBi- 
cal work of Mr. Johnson, then in the course of 
publication. These engagements, useful and honour- 
able in themselves, contributed, no doubt, to the ab- 
straction of his thoughts from the business of agricuW 
ture. 

The consequences may be easily imagined. Not» 
withstanding the uniform prudence and good manage- 
ment of Mrs. Burns, and though his rent was moder- 
ate and reasonable, our poet found it convenient, if not 
necessary, to resign his farm to Mr. Miller ; afterhav* 
ing occupied it three years and a half. His office in 
the excise had originally produced about fifty pounds 
per annum. Having acquitted himself to the satisfac- 
tion of the board, he had been appointed to a new dis- 
trict, the emoluments of which rose to about seventy 
pounds per annum. Hoping to support himself and 
his family on this humble income till promotion should 
reach him, lie disposed of his stock and of his crop on 
Ellisland by public auction, and removed to a small 
house which he had taken in Dumfries, about the end 
of the year 1731. 

Hitherto Burns, thou«h addicted to excess in social 
parties, had abstained from the habitual use of strong 
liquors, And his constitution had not suffered any per- 
manent injury from the irregularities of his conduct. 
Ill Dumfries, temptations to the sin lint so easily beset 
him, continually presented themselves ; and his irregu- 
larities grew by degrees into habits. These tempta- 
tions unhappily occurred during his engagements in 
l he business of his office, as well as during his hours of 
relaxation ; and though he clearly foresaw the conse- 
quences of yielding to them, his appetites and sensa- 
tions, which could not prevent the dictates of his judg- 
ment, finally triumphed over the powers of his will. 
Yet this victory was not obtained without many obsti- 
nate struggles, and at times temperance and virtua 
seemed to have obtained the mastery. Besides his 
engagements in the excise, and the society into which 
they led, many circumstances contributed to the me- 
lancholy fate of Burns. His great celebrity made him 
an object of interest and curiosity to strangers., and 
few persons of cultivated minds passed through Dum. 
fries without attempting to see our poet, and to enjoy 
the pleasures of his conversation. As he could not re- 
ceive them under his own humble roof, these interviews 
passed at the inns of the town, and often terminated 
in those excesses which Burns sometimes provoked, 
and was seldom able to resist. And among the inhabi- 
tants of Dumfries and its vicinity, inere were never 
wanting persons to share his social pleasures ; to lead 
or accompany him to the tavern; to partake in the 
wildest sallies of his wit ; to witncss.the strength and 
the degradation of his genius. 

* Given from the information of one of the partv. 
T See No LXXXVHI. 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



SUV., however, lie cultivated the society of persons 
of taste and ol respectability, and in their company 
eould impose on himself tile restraints of temperance 
and decorum. Nor was his muse dormant. In the four 
years which he lived in Dumfries, he produced many 
of his beautiful lyrics, though it does not appear that he 
attempted any poem of considerable length. During 
this time he made several excursions into the neigh- 
bouring country, one of which, through Galloway, an 
account is preserved in a letter of Mr. Syme, written 
soon after ; which, as it gives an-animaled picture of 
him by a correct and masterly hand, we shall present 
to the reader. 

" 1 goi. Burns a gray Highland shelty to ride on. — 
VV'e di-nd the first day, 27lh July, 1793, at Glenden- 
wynes if Parton ! a beautiful situation on the banks of 
the Dee. In the evening we walked out, and ascended 
a gentle eminence, from which we had as fine a view 
of Alpine scenery as can well be imagined. A delight- 
ful soft evening showed all its wilder as well as its 
grander graces. Immediately opposite, aud within a 
mile of us, we saw Airds, a charming romantic place, 
where dwelt Low, the author of May wept no more 
forme.' This was classical ground for Burns. He 
viewed " the highest hill which rises o'er the source 
of Dee:" and would have staid till "the passing 
spirit," had appeared, had we not resolved to reach 
Kenmore that night. We arrived as Mr. aud Mrs. 
Gordon were sitting down to supper. 

"Here is a genuine baron's seat. The castle, an 
old building, stands on a large natural moat, in front 
*.he river Ken winds for several miles through the most 
fertile and beautiful holm,] till it expands into a lake 
twelve miles long, the banks of which, on the south, 
present a fine and soft landscape of green knolls, natur- 
al wood, and here and there a gray rock. On the north, 
the aspect is, great, wild, and, I may say, tremendous. 
in short, lean scarcely conceive a scene more terri- 
bly romantic than the castle of Kenmore. Burns thinks 
so highly of it, that he meditates a description of it in 
poetry. Indeed, 1 believe be has hegun the work. We 
Bpent three days with Mr. Gordon, whose polished hos- 
pitality is of an original and endearing kind. Mrs. 
Gordon's lap-dog, Echo, was dead. She would have 
an epitaph for him. Several had been made. Burns 
was asked for one. This was setting Hercules to his 
distaft", He disliked the subject ; but to please the lady 
he would try. Here is what he produced. 

" In wooil and wild, ye warbling throng, 

Your heavy loss deplore ! 
Now half extinct your powers of song, 

Sweet Echo is no more. 

Ye. jarring screeching things around, 

Scream your discordant joys 1 
Now half your din of tuneless song 

With Echo silent lies." 

" We left Kenmore, and went to Gatehouse, I took 
him the inoor-road, where savage and desolate regions 
extended wide around. The sky was sympathetic 
with the wretchedness of the soil ; it became lowering 

* A beautiful and well-known ballad, which begins 
thus— 

" The moon had climbed the highest hill, 
Which rises o'er the source of Dee, 

And, fi om the eastern summit, shed 
Its silver light on towerand tree. 

t The level low ground on the banks of a river or 
»tre»m. This word should be adopted from the Scot- 
tish, as, indeed ought several others of the same na- 
ture. That dialect is singularly conious and exact in 
tbe«ienominations of natural objects. E. 



and dark. The hollow winds Bighed, the lightning 
gleamed, the thunder rolled. The poet enjoyed the 
awful scene — he spoke not a word, but seemed wrapt 
in meditation. In a little while the rain began to fall : 
it poured in floods upon us. For three hours did tho 
wild elements rumble tlvir btlly full upon our de- 
fenceless heads. Oh.' Oh! 'twas foal. Wegot utterly 
wet ; and to revenge ourselves Burns insisted at Gate- 
house on our getting utterly drunk. 

" From Gatehouse, we went next day to Kirkcud- 
bright, through a fine country. But here I must teil 
you that Burns had got a pair of jemmy boots for the 
journey, which had been thoroughly wet, and which 
had been dried in such a manner that it was not possi- 
ble to get them on again. The brawny poet tried force, 
and tore them to shre''s. A whiffling vexation of this 
sort is more trying to the temper than a serious calami- 
ty. We were going to St. Mary's Isle, the seat of the 
Earl of Selkirk, and the forlorn Burns was discomfited 
at the thought of his ruined boots. A sick stomach, 
and a head ache, lent their aid, and the man of verse 
was quite iriscabie. I attempted to reason with him. 
Mercy on us ! how did he fume with rage ! Nothing 
could reinstate him in temper. I tried various expedi- 
ents, and at last hit upon one that succeeded. I show- 
ed him the house of * * *, across the bayofWigton. 
Against* * *, with whom he was offended, he ex- 
pectorated his spleen, and regained a most agreeable 
temper. He was in a most epigrammatic humour in- 
deed ! He afterwards fell on humbler game. There 
is one * * * whom he does not love. He had a passing 
blow at him. 

" When , deceased, to the devil went down, 

'Twas nothing would serve him but Satan's own 

crown : 
Thy fool's head, quoth Satan, that crown shall wear 

never, 
I grant thou'rt as wicked, but not quite so clever." 

" Well, I am to bring you to Kirkcudbright alor 
with our poet, without boots. I carried the torn ruin 
across my saddle in spite of his fulminations, and ir 
contempt of appearances ; and what is more, Lore 
Selkirk carried them in his coach to Dumfries. He in- 
sisted they were worth mending. 

" We reached Kirkcudbright about one o'clock. : 
had promised that we should dine with one of the first 
men in our country, J. Dalzell. But Burns was in a 
wild obstreperous humour, and swore he would not 
dine where he should be under the smallest restraint. 
We prevailed, therefore, on Mr. Dalzell to dine with 
us in the inn, and had a vet y agreeable party. In the 
evening we set out for St. Mary's Isle. Robert had 
not absolutely regained the milkiness of good temper, 
and it occurred once or twice to him, as he rode along, 
that St. Mary's Isle was the seat of a Lord ; yet that 
Lord was not an aristocrat, at least in the sen&s of the 
word. We arrived at about eight o'clock, as the fami- 
ly were at tea and coffee. St. Mary's isle is one of the 
most delightful places that can, in my opinion, be 
formed by the assemblage of every soft, but not tame 
object which constitutes natural and cultivated beau- 
ty. But not to dwell on its external graces, let me tell 
you that we found all the ladies of the family (all beau- 
tiful) at home, and some strangers ; and among others 
who but U'bani ! The Italian sung us many Scottish 
songs, accompanied with instrumental music. The 
two young ladies of Selkirk sung also. We had the 
song of Lord Gregory, which 1 asked for, to have au 
opportunity of calling on Burns to recite his ballad to 
that tune. He did recite it ; and such was the effect 
that a dead silence ensued. It was such a silence as 
a mind of feeling naturally preserves when it is touch- 
ed with that enthusiasm which banishes every othes 
thought but the contemplation and indulgence of th 
sympathy produced. Burn's Lord Gregory is, in roy" 
opinion, a most beautiful and affecting ballad. The 
fastidious critic may perhaps say some of the senti- 
ments and imagpry are of too elevateds kind far suck* 
style of composition ; for instance, " Tbou boh of bes» 



38 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



»en that passesl by ;" and " Ye, mustering thunder," 
Ac. ; but this is a cold-blooded objection, which will be 
Kiid rather than /eft. 

" We enjoyed a most happy evening at Lord Sel- 
kirk's. We had, in every sense of the word, a feast, 
In which our minds and our senses were equally grati- 
fied. The poet was delighted with his company, and 
acquitted himself to admiration. Th- lion that had 
raged so violently in the morning, was now as mild 
and gentle as a lamb. Next day we returned to Dum- 
fries, and so ends our peregrination. I told you, that 
in the midst of the storm, on the wilds of Kenmore, 
Burns was rapt in meditation. What do you think he 
was about ? He was charging the English army along 
with Bruce at. Bannockburn. He was outraged in the 
same manner on our ride home from St. Mary's Isle, 
and I did not disturb him. Next day he produced me 
the following address of Bruce to his troops, and gave 
me a copy for Dalzell." 

" Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," &e. 

Burns had entertained hopes of promotion in the 
excise ; but circumstances occurred which retarded 
their fulfilment, and which in his own mind, destroy- 
ed all expectation of their being fulfilled. The extra- 
ordinary events which ushered in the revolution of 
France, interested the feelings, and excited the hopes 
of men in every corner of Europe. Prejudice and tyr- 
anny seemed about to dispppearfrom among men, and 
the day-star of reason to rise upon a benighted world. 
in the "dawn of this beautiful morning, the genius of 
French freedom appeared on our southern horizon 
with the countenance of an angel, but speedily assum- 
ed the features of a demon, and vanished in a shower 
of biood. 

Though previously a Jacobite and a cavalier, Burns 
had shared in the original hopes entertained of this 
astonishing revolution, by ardent and benevolent 
minds. The novtlty and the hazard of the attempt 
meditated by the First, or Constituent Assembly, 
served rather, it is probable, to recommend it to his 
daring temper ; and the unfettered scope proposed 
10 be given to every kind of talents, was doubtless 
gratifying to the feelings of conscious but indignant 
genius. Burns foresaw not the mighty ruin that was 
to be the immediate consequence of an enterprise, 
which on its commencement, promised so much hap- 
piness to the human race. And even after the career 
at guilt and of blood commenced, he could not imme- 
diately, it may he presumed, withdraw his partial 
gaze from a people who hud so lately breathed the 
sentiments of universal peace and benignity ; or ob- 
literate in his bosom the pictures of hope and of hap- 
piue3s to which those sentiments had given birth. 
Under these impressions, he did not always conduct 
himself with the circumspection and prudence which 
his dependant situation seemed to demand. He en- 
gaged indeed in no popular associations, so common 
at the time of which we i;peak : but in company he 
did not conceal his opinions of public measures, or of 
toe reforms required in the practice of our govern- 
ment ; and sometimes in his social and unguarded 
moments, he uttered them with a wild and unjustifia- 
ble vehemence. Information of this was given to the 
Board of Excise, with the exaggerations so general 
in such cases. A superior officer in that department 
was authorised to inquire into his conduct. Burns 
defended himself in a letter addressed to one of the 
Uottrd, written with great independence of spirit, and 
with more than his accustomed eloquence. The offi- 
cer appointed to inquire into his conduct, gave a fa- 
vourable report. His steady friend, Mr. Graham of 
Finlry, interposed his good offices in his behalf; and 
the imprudent gauger was suffered to retain his situ- 
ation, but given 10 understand that iiis promotion 
was deferred, and must depend on his future beha- 
viour. 

" This circumstance made a deep impression on 
the mind of Burns. Fame exaggerated his miscon- 
duct, and represented him as actually dismissed from 
Lit u&cti ; and this report induced a gentleman of 



much respectability to propose a subscription in Sh 
favour. The offer was refused by our poet in a letter 
of great elevation of sentiment, in which he gives as 
account of the whole of this transaction, and defend* 
himseif from the imputation of disloyal sentiments on 
the one hand, and on the other, from the charge ol 
having made submissions for the sake of his office, uu 
worthy of his character. 

" The partiality of my countrymen," he observes, 
"has brought me forward as a man of genius, and 
has given me a character to support. In the poet I 
have avowed manly and independent sentiments, 
which 1 hope have been found in the man. Reasons 
of no less weight than the support of a wife and chil- 
dren, have pointed out my present occupation as tlie 
only eligible line of life within my reach. Still my 
honest fame is my dearest concern, and a thousand 
times have I trembled at the idea of the degrading 
epithets that malice or misrepresentation may ainx to 
my name. Often in blasting anticipation have I lis- 
tened to some future hackney scribbler, with the 
heavy malice of savage stupidity, ex ultingry asserting 
that Burns, notwithstanding the Funfaronnade of 
independence to be found in his works, and after ha- 
ving been held up to public view, and to public esti- 
mation, a3 a man of some genius, yet, quite destitute 
of resources within himself to support his borrowed 
dignity, dwindled into a paltry exciseman, and slunk 
out the rest of his insignificant existence in the mean- 
est of pursuits, and among the lowest of mankind. 

" In your illustrious hands, Sir, permit me to lodge 
my strong disavowal and defiance of such slanderous 
falsehoods. Burns was a poor man from his birth, 
and an exciseman by necessity ; but — I will say it I 
the sterling of his honest worth poverty could not de- 
base, and his independent British spirit, oppression 
might bend, but could not subdue." 

It was one of the last acts of his life to copy this 
letter into his book of manuscripts, accompanied by 
some additional remarks on the same subject. It is 
not surprising, that at a season of universal alarm 
for the safety of the constitution, the indiscreet ex- 
pressions of a man so powerful as Burns, should have 
attracted notice. The times certainly required ex- 
traordinary vigilance in those intrusted with th«t 
administration of the government, and to en- 
sure the safety of the constitution was doubtless 
their first duty. Yet generous minds will lament 
that their measures of precaution should have robbed 
the imagination of our poet of the last prop on which 
his hopes of independence rested ; and by embittering 
his peace, have aggravated those excesses which 
were soon to conduct him to an untimely grave. 

Though the vehemence of Burns's temper, increased 
as it often was by stimulating liquors, might lead him 
into many improper and unguarded expressions, 
there seems no reason to doubt of his attachment to 
our mixed form of government. In his common- 
place book, where he could have no temptation tc dis- 
guise, are the following sentiments. " Whatever 
might be my sentiments of republics, ancient or mod- 
ern, as to Britain 1 ever abjured the idea. A consti- 
tution, which in its original principles, experience has 
proved to be every, way fitted for our happiness, it 
would be insanity to abandon for an untried visionary 
theory." In conformity to these sentiments, when 
the pressing nature of public affairs called, in 17&5, 
for a general .timing of the people, Burns appeared in 
the ranks of the Dumfries volunteers, and employed 
his poetical talents in stimulating their patriotism ; * 
and at this season of alarm, he brought forward \ 
hymn, t worthy of the Grecian muse, when Greece 
was most conspicuous for genius and valour. 

* See Poem entitled The Dumfries Volunteers. 

t The Song of Death, Poems, p. 83. This poem 
was written in 1791. It was printed in Johnson's Mw 
sical Museum. The poet had an intention, in the lat- 
ter part of his life, of printing it separately, Mt %9 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



39 



Though by nature of an athletic form, Burns had in 
In his constitution the peculiarities and delicacies that 
belong to the temperament of genius. He was liable, 
from a very early period of life, to that interruption in 
ihe process of digestion, which arises from deep and 
unxious thought, and which is sometimes the effect 
and sometimes the cause of depression of spirts. Con- 
nected with this disorder of the stomach, there was a 
disposition to head ache, affecting more especially the 
temples and eyeballs, and frequently accompanied by 
violent and irregular movements of the heart. En- 
dowed liy nature with great sensibility of nerves, 
Burns was, in his corporeal, as well as in his mental 
■ystem, liable tn inordinate impressions ; to fever of 
body as well as ol mind. This predisposition to dis- 
ease, which strict temperance in diet, regular exercise, 
and sound sleep, might have subdued, habits of a 
very different nature strengthened and inflamed. 
1 erpetiutlly stimulated by alcohol in one or other of its 
various forms, the inordinate actions of the circulating 
system became at length habitual ; the process of 
nutrition was unable to supply the waste, and the 
powers of lite hegan to fail. Upwards of a year be- 
fore his death, there was an evident decline in our 
poet's personal appearance ; and though his appetite 
continued unimpaired, he was himself sensible that his 
constitution was sinking. In his moments of thought 
he reflected with the deepest regret on his fatal pro- 
gress, clearly foreseeing the goal towards which he was 
hastening, without the strength of mind necessary to 
stop, or even to slacken his course. His temper now 
became more irritable and gloomy ; he fled from 
himself into society, often of the lowest kind. And in 
such company, that part of the convivial scene, in 
which wine increases sensibility and excites benevo- 
lence, was hurried over, to reach the succeeding part, 
over which uncontrolled passion generally presided. 
He who sutlers '.he pollution of inebriation, how shall 
he escape othfr pollution ? But let us refrain from 
the mention jf srrors over which delicacy and human- 
ity draw the veil. 

In the midst of all his wanderings, Burns met no- 
thing in his domestic circle but gentleness and for- 
giveness, except in the gnawings of his own remorse. 
He acknowledged his transgressions to the wife of his 
bosom, promised amendment, and again and again re- 
vived pardon for his offences. But as the strength 
of his body decayed, Iris resolution became feebler, and 
habit acquired predominating strength. 

Prom October 1795, to the January following, an 
accidental complaint confined him to the house. A 
few days after he began to go abroad, he dined at a 
tavern, and returned home about three o'clock, in a 
very cold morning, benumbed and intoxicated. This 
was followed by an attack of rheumatism, which con- 
fined him about a week. His appetite now began to 
fail ; his hand shook, and his voice faltered on any 
exertion or emotion. His pulse became weaker and 
more rapid, and pain in the larger joints, and in the 
hands and feet, deprived him of "the enjoyment of re- 
freshing sleep. Too much dejected in his spirits, and 
too well aware of his real situation to entertain hopes 
of recovery, he was ever musing on the approaching 
desolation of his family, and his spiritb sunk into a 
Uniform gloom. 

ft was hoped by some of his friends, that if he could 
five through the months of spring, the succeeding sea- 
son might restore him. But they were disappointed. 
The genial beams of the sun infused no rigour into his 
languid frame : the summer wind blew upon him, hut 
produced no refreshment. About the latter end of 

music, but was advised against it, or at least discour- 
aged from it. The martial ardour which rose so high 
afterwards, on the threatened invasion, had not then 
acquired the tone necessary to give popularity to this 
Doblepoera; which to the Editor, seems more calcu- 
lated to invigorate the spirit of defence, in a season of 
real and pressing danger than any production of 
Dpdern times. 



June he was advised to go into the country, and im- 
patient of medical advice, as well as ot every species 
of control, he determined for himself to try the effects 
of bathing in the sea. For this purpose he took up his 
residence at Brow, in Annandale, about ten miles 
east of Dumfries, on the shore of the Solway-Firth. 

It happened that at that time a lady with whom he 
had been connected in friendship by the sympathies 
of kindred genius, was residing in the immediate 
neighbourhood.* Being informed of his arrival, she 
invited him to dinner, and sent her carriage for him 
to the cottage where he lodged, as he was unable to 
walk. " I was struck," says this lady, (in a confi- 
dential letter to a friend written soon after,) "with 
his appearance on entering the room. The stamp of 
death was imprinted on his features. He seemed al- 
ready touching the brink of eternity. His first saluta 
lion was, ' Well, Madam, have you any commands 
for the other world?' 1 replied, that it seemed a 
doubtful case which of us should be there soonest, and 
that I hoped he would yet live to write my epitaph. 
(I was then in a bad state of health.) He looked in 
lace with an air of great kindness, and expressed 



his concern 



seeing me look so ill, with his accus- 



tomed sensibility. At table he ate little or nothing, 
and he complained of having entirely lost the tone of 
his stomach. We had a long and serious conversation 
about his present situation, "and the approaching ter- 
mination ol'al. nis earthly prospects. I le spoke of his 
death without any of the ostentation of philosophy, 
but with firmness as well as feeling, as an event likely 
to happen very soon ; and which gave him concern 
chiefly from leaving his four children so young and 
unprotected, and his wife in so interesting a situation 
— in hourly expectation of lying in of a fifth. He 
mentioned, with seeming pride and satisfaction, the 
promising genius of his eldest son, and the flattering 
marks of approbation he had received from his teach- 
ers, and dwelt particularly on his hopes of that boy's 
future conduct and merit. His anxiety for his family 
seemed to hang heavy upon him, and the more per- 
haps from the reflection that he had not done them all 
the justice he was so well qualified to do. Fassing 
from this subject, he showed great concern about the 
care of his literary fame, and particularly the publica- 
lion of his posthumous works. He said he was well 
aware that. his death would occasion some noise, and 
that every scrap of his writing would be revived 
against him to the injury of his future reputation ; 
that letters and verses written with unguarded and 
improper freedom, and which he earnestly wished 
to have buried in oblivion, would be handed' about by 
idle vanity or malevolence, when no dread of his re- 
sentment would restrain them, or prevent the cen- 
sures of shrill-tongued malice, or the insidious sar- 
casms of envy, from pouring forth all their venom to 
blast his fame. 

" He lamented that he had written many epigrams 
on persona against whom he entertained no enmity, 
and whose characters he should be sorry to wound ; 
and many indifferent poetical pieces, which he feared 
would now, with all their imperfections on their head, 
be thrust upon the world. On this account he deeply 
regretted having deferred to put his papers in a state 
of arrangement, as he was now quite incapable of the 
exertion." The lady goes on to mention many other 
topics of a private nature on which he spoke. " The 
conversation," she adds, "was kept up with great 
evenness and animation on his side. 1 had seldom 
seen his mind greater or more collected. There was 
frequently a considerable degree of vivacity in his sal- 
lies, and they would probably have had a greater 
share, had not the concern and dejection I could not 
disguise, damped the spirit of pleasantry he seemed 
not unwilling to indulge. 

" We parted about sunset on the evening of that 
day (the 5th July, 1796 ;) the next day I saw him again, 
and we parted to meet no more !" 

• For » character of this lady, set letter, No. CXX 



40 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



At first Burns imagined bathing ;n the sea had been i Of this sum, the part expended on his library (which 
of benefit to him: the pains in his limbs were re- was far from extensive) and in the humble furniture of 
liaved ; but this was immediately followed by a new I his house, remained ; and obligations were found for 
attack of fever. When brought back to his own house I two hundred pounds advanced by him to the assist- 
in Dumfries, on the 18th of July, he was no longer able ance of those to whom he was united by the ties of 
lo stand upright. At this time a tremor pervaded his I blood, and still moie by those of esteem and affection. 
frame : his tongue was parched, and his mind sunk I When it is considered, that his expenses in Edinburgh 
into delirium, when not roused by conversation. On and on his various journeys, could not be inconsidera- 
the second and third day the fever increased, and his ble ; that his agricultural undertaking was uusuccess- 
•trength diminished. On the fourth, the sufferings of] ful ; that his income from the excise was for soma 
this great but ill-fated genius, were terminated ; and 
a life was closed in which virtue and passion had been 
at perpetual variance.* 

The death of Burns made a strong and general im- 
pression on all who had interested themselves in his 
Character and especially on the inhabitants cf the 
town and county in which he had spent the latter years 
of his life. Flagrantashis lollies and errors had been, 
they had not deprived him of the respect and regard 
entertained for the extraordinary powers of his genius, 
and the generous qualities of his heart. The Gentle 
man Volunteers of Dumfries determined to bury their 
illustrious associate with military honours, and every 
preparation was made to render this last service sol- 
emn and impressive. The Fencible Infantry of Angua- 
shire, and the regiment of cavalry of the Cinque I oris, 
at that time quartered in Dumfries, offered their as- 
sistance on this occasion the principal inhabitants of the 
town and neighbourhood determined to walk in the fu- 
neral procession ; and a vast concourse of persons as- 
sembled, some ofthemata considerable distance, to wit 
ness the obsequies of the Scottish Bard. On the eve- 
ning of the 25th of July, the remains of Burns were 
removed from his house to the Town-Hall, and the 
funeral took place on the succeeding day. A party of 
volunteers, selected to perform the military duty in 
the church-yard, stationed themselves in the front of 
the procession, with their arms reversed ; the main 
body of the corps surrounded and supported the coffin, 
on which were placed the hat and sword of their friend 
and fellow-soldier ; the numerous body of attendants 
ranged themselves in the rear ; while the Fencible re- 
giments ofiufantry and cavalry lined the streets from 
the Town-Hall to the burial ground in the Southern 
church-yard, a distance of more than half a mile. The 
whole procession moved forward to that sublime and 
affecting strain of music, the Dead March in Saul ; and 
three volleys fired over his grave, marked the return of 
Burns to his parent earth ! The spectacle was in a 
high degree grand and solemn, and accorded with the 
general sentiments of sympathy and sorrow which the 
occasion had called forth. 

It was an affecting circumstance, trial, on the morn- 
ing of the day of her husband's funeral, Mrs. Burns 
was undergoing the pains of labour; and that during 
the solemn service we have just been describing, the 
posthumous son of our poet was born. This infant 
boy, who received the name of Maxwell, was not des- 
tined to a long life. He has already become an inhab- 
tant of the same grave with his celebrated father. The 
four "other children of our poet, all sons, (the eldest at 
that time about ten years of age) yet survive, and give 
every promise of prudence and virtue thai can be ex- 
pected from their tender year3. They remain under 
the care of their affectionate mother in Dumfries, and 
enjoying the means of educatiou which the excellent 
schools of that town afford ; the teachers of which, in 
their conduct to the children of Burns, do themselves 
great honour. On this occasion the name of Mr. Whyte 
deserves to be particularly mentioned, himself a poet, 
as well as a man of science.} 



Burns died in great poverty ; out the independence 
of his spirit and the exemplary prudence of his wife, 
had preserved him from debt. He had received from 
his poems a clear profit of about nine hundred pounds. 

* The particulars respecting tne illness and death of 
Burns, were obligingly furnished by Dr. Maxwell, the 
physician who attended him. 

t Author of "St. Guerdon's Well," a poem; and 
of * ATribute to the Memory of Burns." 



time as low as fifty, and never rose to above seventy 
pounds a year ; that his family was large, and his 
spirit liberal— no one will be surprised that his cir- 
cumstances were so poor, or that, as his health de- 
cayed his proud and feeling heart sunk under the se- 
cret consciousness of indigence, and the apprehensions 
of absolute want. Yet poverty never bent the spirit of 
Burns to any pecuniary meanness. Neither chicanery 
nor sordidness ever appeared in his conduct. He car- 
ried his disregard of money to a blameable excess. 
Even in the midst of distress he bore himself loftily to 
the world, and received with a jealous reluctance every 
offer of friendly assistance. His primed poems had 
procured him great celebrity, and a just and fair re- 
compense for the latter offspring of his pen might have 
produced him considerable emolument, in the year 
1795, the Editor of a London newspaper, high in its 
character for literature, and independence of senti- 
ment, made a proposal to him thai he should furnish 
them, once a week, with an article for their poetical 
department, and receive from them a recompense of 
fifty-two guineas per annum ; an offer which his pride 
of genius disdained to accept. Yet he had for several 
years furnished, and was at that time furnishing, the 
Museum of Johnson with his beautiful lyrics, without 
fee or reward, and was obstinately refusing all recom 
pense for his assistance to ihe greater work of Mr. 
Thomson, which the justice and geuerosity of that gen- 
tleman was pressing upon him. 

The senseofhis poverty, and of the approaching dis- 
tress of his infant family, pressed heavily on Burns as 
he lay on the bed of death. Yet he alluded to his indi- 
gence, at times "with something approaching to his 
wonted gayety.— " What business," said he to Dr. 
Maxwell, who attended him with the utmost zeal, 
" has a physician to waste his time on me ? I am a 
poor pigeon, not worth plucking, Alas ! 1 have not 
feathers enough upon me to carry me to my grave." — 
And when his reason was lost in delirium his ideas 
ran in the same melancholy train j the horrors of a 
jail were continually present to his troubled imagi- 
nation, and produced the most affecting exclamations. 

As for some months previous to his death he had 
been incapable of the duties of his office, Burns dread- 
ed that his salary should be reduced one half as is usu- 
al in such cases. His full emoluments were, however, 
continued to him by the kindness of Mr. Stobbie a 
young expectant in the Excise, who performed the 
duties of his office without fee or reward ; and Mr. 
Graham of Fintry, hearing of his illness, though unac- 
quainted with its dangerous nature, made an offer of 
his assistance towards procuring him the means of 
preserving his health. Whatever might be the faults 
of Burns, ingratitude was not of the number. — 
Amongst his manuscripts, various proofs are found of 
the sense he entertained ol Mr. Graham's friendship, 
which delicacy towards that gentleman has induced 
us tu suppress ; and on this last occasion there is no 
doubt that his heart overflowed towards liim, though 
he had no longer Uie power of expressing his feel- 
ings.' 

On the death of Burns the inhabitants of Dumfries 
and its neighbourhood opened a subscription for the 
support of his wile and family; and Mr. Miller. Mr. 
M'Mui do, Dr. Maxwell, Mr. Syme, and Mr. Cun- 
ningham, gentlemen of the first respectability, becamg 

* The letter of Mr. Graham, alluded to above, is dat- 
ed on the 13th of July, and probably arrived on the 15th. 
Burns became delirious on the 17th or -Slh and died 
onthe21»t, 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



41 



trustee* for the application of the money to its proper 
objects. The subscription was extended to other parts 
of Scotland, and of England also, particularly London 
and Liverpool. By this means a sum was raised a- 
mounting tu seven hundred pounds ; and thus the wid- 
ow and children were rescued from immediate distress, 
aud the most melancholy of the forebodings of Burns 
happily disappointed, it is true, this sum, though 
equal to their present support, is insufficient to secure 
them from future penury. Their 'hope in regard to fu- 
turity depends on the favourable reception of these 
volumes irum the public at large, in the promoting of 
which the candour aud humanity of the reader may in- 
duce him to l.-ud his assistance. 

Burns, as has already been mentioned, was nearly 
live feet ten inches in height, and of a form that indi- 
cated agility as well as strength. His well-raised fore- 
head, shaded with black curling hair, indicated exten- 
sive capacity. His eyes were large, dark, full of ardour 
and intelligence. His face was well formed ; and his 
countenance uncommonly interesting and expressive. 
His mode of dressing, which was often slovenly, and a 
certain fulness and bend in his shoulders, characteris- 
tic of his original profession, disguised in some degree 
the natural symmetry and elegance of his form. The 
external appearance of Burns was most strikingly in- 
dicative of the character of his mind. On a first view 
his physiognomy had a certain air of coarseness, ming- 
led, however, with an expression of deep penetration, 
and lot calm ihoughltuluess, approaching to melan- 
choly. There appeared in his first manner and ad- 
dress, perlect ease and self possession, but a stern and 
almost supercilious elevation, not, indeed, incompati- 
ble with openness and affability, which, however, be- 
spoke a mind conscious of superior talents. Strangers 
that supposed themselves approaching an Ayrshire 
peasant who could make rhymes, and to whom their 
notice was an honour, found themselves speedily over- 
awed by tlie presence of a man who bore himself with 
dignity, ami who possessed a singular power of correct- 
ing forwardness, and of repelling intrusion. But 
though jealous of the respect due to himself, Burns 
never enforced it where he saw it was willingly paid ; 
aud though inaccessible to the approaches of pride, he 
was open to every advance of kindness and of benevo- 
lence. .His dark and haughty countenance easily re- 
laxed into a look of good-will, of pity, or of tenderness ; 
and, as the various emotions succeeded each other in 
his mind, assumed witii equal ease the expression of 
the broadest humour, of the most extravagant mirth, 
of the deepest melancholy, or of the most sublime 
emotion. The tones of his voice happily corresponded 
with the expression of his features, aud with the fee- 
lings of his mind. When to these endowments are ad- 
ded a rapid and distinct apprehension, a most pow- 
erful understanding, and a happy command of lan- 
guage— of strength as well as brilliancy of expression 
— we shall be able to account for the extra- 
ordinary attractions of his conversation — for the sor- 
cery which in Iiis social parties he seemed to exert on 
all around him. Ill the company of women this sorce- 
ry was more especially apparent. Their presence 
Charmed »he fiend of melancholy in his bosom, and 
awoke his happiest feelings ; it excited the powers of 
his fancy, as well as the tenderness of his heart ; and, 
by restraining the vehemence and the exuberance of 
his langua; e, at times gave to his manners the impres- 
sion ot taste, and even of elegance, which in the compa- 
ny of men they seldom possessed. This influence was 
doubtless reciprocal. A Scottish Lady, accustomed 
to the best society, declared with characteristic naivete 
that no man's conversation ever carried herself go 
completely off her feet as that of Burns ; aud an Eng- 
lish Lady, familiarly acquainted with several of the 
most distinguished characters of the present times, as 
sured the Editor, that in the happiest of her social 
hours, there was a charm about Burns which she had 
never seen equalled. This charm arose not more from 
the power than the versatility of his genius. Nolan 
guor could be felt in the society of a man who passed 
•t pleasure from gravt \o gay, from the ludicrous to 
the pathetic, from the simple to the sublime ; who 
wielded all his faculties with equal strength and ease, 
and never failed to impress the offspring of his fancy 
villi the stamp of his understanding 



This indeed, is to represent Bums in his happiest 
phi. sis. In large and mixed parties he was often si- 
lent and dark, sometimes fierce and overbearing; he 
was jealous of liie proud man's, scorn, jealous to an 
extreme of '.he insolence of wealth, and prone to 
avenge, even on its innocent possessor, the partiality of 
fortune. By nature kind, brave, sincere, and in a sin- 
gulardegree compassionate, he was on the other hand 
proud, irascible, and vindicative. His virtues and his 
failings had their origin in the extraordinary sensibili- 
ty of his mind, aud equally partook of the chills and 
glows of sentiment. His friendships were liable to in- 
terruption from jealousy or disgust, and his enmities 
died away under the influence of pity or self-accusa- 
tion. His understanding was equal to the other pow- 
ers of his mind, and his deliberate opinions were singu- 
larly candid and just ; but, like other men of great and 
irregular genius, the opinions which he delivered in 
conversation were often the offspring of temporary 
feelings, and widely different from the calm decisions 
of his judgment. This was not merely true re- 
specting the characters of others, but in legard to 
some of the most important points of human sptc 
ulation. 

On no subject did he give a more striking proof of the 
strength of bis understanding, than in the correct esti- 
mate he formed of himself. He knew his own failings ; 
he predicted their consequence ; the melancholy fore- 
boding was never long absent from his mind ; yet his 
passions carried him down the stream of error, and 
swept him over the precipice he saw directly in his 
course. The fatal defect in his character lay in the 
the comparative weakness of his volition, that superior 
faculty of the mind, which governing the conduct ac- 
cording to the dictates of the understanding, alone en- 
titles it to be denominated rational ; which is the pa- 
rent of fortitude, patience, and self-denial; which, by 
regulating and combining human exertions, may be 
said to have effected all that is great in the works of 
man, in literature, in science or on the face of nature. 
The occupations of a poet are not calculated to 
strengthen the governing powers of the mind, or U 
weaken that sensibility which requires perpetual con- 
trol, since it gives birth to vehemence of passion as 
well as to the higher powers ol imagination. Unfortu- 
nately the favorite occupations of genius are calculat- 
ed to increase all its peculiarities; to nourish that 
lofty pride which disdains the littleness of prudence, 
and the restrictions of order : anO by indulgence, to in- 
crease that sensibility which, in the present form of 
our existence, is scarcely compatible with peace or hap- 
piness, even when accompanied with the choicest gift* 
of fortune ! 

It is observed by one who wan a. friend and associate 
of Burns,* and who has contemplated and explained 
the system of animated nature, that no sentient being 
with mental powers greatly superior to those of men, 
could possibly live and be happy in this world — " If 
such a being realiy existed " continues he, " his 
misery would be extreme. With senses more delicate 
and refined ; with perceptions more acute and pene- 
trating ; with a taste so exquisite that the objects 
around him would by no means gratify it ; obliged 
to feed on nourishment too gross for his frame ; he 
must be born only to be miserable ; and the continu- 
ation of his existence would he utterly impossible. 
Even in our present condition, the sameness and the 
insipidity of objects and pursuits, the futility of 
pleasure, and the infinite sources of excruciating pain, 
are supported with great difficulty by cultivated and 
refined minds. Increase our sensibilities, continue 
the same objects and situation, and no man could 
bear to live," 

Thus it appears, that our powers of sensation m 
well as all our other powers, are adapted to the seen* 
of our existence ; that they are limited iu mercy, »• 
well as in wisdom. 

The speculations of Mr. Smellie are not to be con- 
sidered as the dreams of a theorist ; they were proao 

• Sraellje— Sea bis " Philosophy of Natural History," 



42 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



bly founded on lad experience. The being he sup- 
poses, " with senses more delicate and refined, with 
perceptions more acute and penetrating," is to be 
found in real lite. He is of the temperament of 
genius, and perhaps a poet. Isthere, then, no remedy 
for this inordinate sensibility ? Are there no means 
by which the happiness of one so constituted by nature 
may be consulted ? Perhaps it will be found, that 
regular and constant occupation, irksome though it 
may at first be, is the true remedy. Occupation in 
which the powers of the understanding are exercised, 
will diminish the force of external impressions, and 
keep the imagination under restraint. 

That the bent of every man's mind should be fol- 
lowed in his education and in his destination in life, 
is a maxim which has been often repealed, but which 
cannot be admitted, without many restrictions. It 
may be generally true when applied to weak minds, 
which being capable of little, must be encouraged and 
strengthened in the feeble impulses by which that lit- 
tle is produced. But where indulgent nature has be- 
stowed her gil't3 with a liberal hand, the very reverse 
of this maxim ought frequently to be the rule of con 
duct. In minds of a higher order, the object of in- 
struction and of discipline is very often to restrain, 
rather than to impel ; to curb the impulses of imagi- 
nation, so that the passions also may be kept under 
control.* 

Hence the advantages, even in a moral point of 
view, of studies of a severer nature, which while they 
inform the understanding, employ the volition, that 
regulating power of the mind, which, like all our oth- 
er faculties, is strengthened by exercise, and on the 
superiority of which, virtue, happiness, and honoura- 
ble fame, are wholly dependant. Hence also the ad- 
vantage of regular and constant application, which 
aids the voluntary power by the production of habits 
so necessary to the support of order and virtue, and so 
difficult to be formed in the temperament of genius. 

The man who is so endowed and so -egulated. may 
pursue his course with confidence in almost any of the 
various walks of life which choice or accident shall 
open to him; and, provided he employs the talents 
he has cultivated, may hope for such imperfect happi- 
ness, and such limited success, as are reasonably to be 
expected from human exertions. 

The pre eminence among men, which procures per- 
sonal respect, and which tei initiates in lasting reputa- 
tion, is seidom or never obtained by the excellence of 
a single faculty ot mind. Experience teaches us, that 
it has been acquired by those only who have possessed 
the comprehension and the energy of general talents, 
and who have regulated their application, in the line 
which choice, or perhaps accident, may have deter 
mined, by the dictates of their judgment. Imagination 
is supposed, and with justice, to be the leading faculty 
of the poet. But what poet has stood the lest of time 
by the force of this single faculty ? Who does not see 
that Homer and Shakspeare excelled ihe rest of their 

* duinctilian discusses the important question, 
whether the bent of the individual's genius should be 
followed in his education (an secundum sui, guisque 
ingeniidocertdus sit naturam,) chiefly, indeed, with a 
reference to the orator, but in a way that admits of 
very general application. His conclusions coincide 
very much with those of the text. " An vero lsocra- 
tescum de Ephoroatque Theopompo sic judicaret, ut 
alieri frenis, altei i calcoribus opus esse dioeret ; aut 
in illo lentiore tarditatein, aut in illo pene praecipiti 
ooncitationem adjuvandum docendo existimavit ? cum 
alteram alterius natura miscendum arbilraretur. Im- 
becillis tamen ingeniis sane sic obsequendum, sit, ul 
■antum in id quo vocat natura, ducantur. lta euim, 
-juod solum possunt, melius efficient." 

Inst, Orator, lib.ii.9. 



species in understanding 1 as well as in imagination l 
that they were preeminent in the highest species ol 
knowledge — the knowledge of the nature and charac- 
ter of man ? On the other hand, the talent of ratioci- 
nation is more especially requisite to the orator ; but 
no man ever obtained the palm of oratory, even by the 
highest excellence in this single talent. Who does not 
perceive that Demosthenes and Cicero were not more 
happy in their addresses to the reason, than in their ap- 
peals to the passions? They knew, that to excite, 
to agitate, and to delight, are among the most potent 
arts of persuasion ; and they enforced their impres- 
sion on the understanding, by their command of all 
the sympathies of the heart. These observations 
might be extended to other walks of life. He who has 
the faculties fitted to excel in poetry, has the faculties 
which, duly governed, and differently directed, might 
lead to pre eminence in other, and, as far as respects 
himself, perhaps in happier destinations. The talents 
necessary to the construction of an Iliad, under differ- 
ent discipline and application, might have led armies 
to victory, or kingdoms to prosperity ; might have 
wielded the thunder of eloquence, or discovered and 
enlarged the sciences that constitute the power and 
improve the condition of our species.* Such talents 

* The reader must not suppose it is contended 
that the same individual could have excelled in all 
these directions. A certain degree of instruction and 
practice is necessary to excellence in every one, and 
life is too short to admit of one man, however great 
his talents, acquiring thi3 in all of them. It is only 
asserted, that the same talents, differently applied, 
might have succeeded in any one, though perhaps, not 
equally well in each. And, after all, this position re- 
quires certain limitations, which the reader's candour 
and judgment will supply. In supposing that a great 
poet might have made a great orator, the physical 
qualities necessary to oratory are pre-supposed. In 
supposing that a great orator might have made a great 
poet, it is a necessary condition, that he should have 
devoted himself to poetry, and that he should have ac- 
quired a proficiency in metrical numbers, which by 
patience and attention may be acquired, though the 
want of it has embarrassed and chilled many of the 
first efforts of true poetical genius. In supposing that 
Homer might have led armies to victory, more indeed 
is assumed than the physical qualities of a general. 
To these must be added that hardihood of mind, that 
coolness in the midst of difficulty and danger, which 
great poets and orators are found sometimes, but not 
always to possess. The nature of the institutions of 
Greece and Rome produced more instances of single 
individuals who excelled in various departments of 
active and speculative life, than occur in modern Eu- 
rope, where the employments of men are more subdi- 
vided. Many of the greatest warriors of antiquity 
excelled in literature and in oratory. That they had 
the minds of great poets also, will be admitted, when 
the qualities are justly appreciated which are necessa- 
ry to excite, combine, arid command the active ener. 
gies of a great body of men, to rouse that enthusiasm 
which sustains fatigue, hunger, and the inclemencies 
of the elements, and which triumphs over the fear of 
death, the most powerful instinct of our nature. 

The authority of Cicero may be appealed to in fa. 
vour of the close connexion between the poet and tha 
orator. Est enim finitimus oratori poeta, numeri* 
adstrictior peiulo, veiborum autem licentia libgrior, 
!fe. De Oratore, Lib. i. «. 16. Set also Lib. iii. e 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



43 



are, indeed, rare among the productions of nature, 
and occasions of bringing them into full exertion are 
rarer still. But safe and salutary occupations may 
be found for men of genius in every direction, while 
the useful and ornamental arts remain to be cultiva- 
ted, while the sciences remain to be studied and to be 
extended, and principles of science to be applied to the 
correction and improvement of art. In the tempera- 
ment of sensibility, which is in truth the temperament 
of general talents, the principal object of discipline and 
instruction is, as has already been mentioned, to 
strengthen the self-command ; and this may be pro- 
moted by the direction of the studies, more effectually 
perhaps than has been generally understood. 

If these observations be founded in truth, they may 
lead to practical consequences of some importance. It 
has been so much the custom to consider the posses- 
sion of poetical talents as excluding the possibility of 
application to the severer branches of study, as in 
some degree incapacitating the possessor from attain- 
ing those habits, and from bestowing that attention, 
which are necessary to success in the details of busi- 
ness, and in the engagements of active life. It has been 
common for persons conscious of talents, to look with 
a sort of disdain on other kinds of intellectual excel- 
lence, and to consider themselves as in some degree 

7. — It is true the example of Cicero may be quoted 
against his opinion. His attempts in verse, which are 
praised by Plutarch, do not seem to have met the an 
probation of Juvenal, or of some others. Cicero pro 
bably did net take sufficient time to learn the art of 
the poet ; but that he had the afflatus necessary to 
poetical excellence, may be abundantly proved from 
his compositions in prose. On the other hand, nothing 
U more clear, than that, in the character of a great 
poet, all the mental qualities of an orator are inclu- 
ded. It is said by Gluiiictilian, of Homer, Omnibus 
eloquentice partibas exemplum et ortumdedit. Lib. 
i. 47. The study of Homer is therefore recommended 
to the orator, as of the first importance. Of the two 
sublime poets in our own language, who are hardly 
inferior to Homer, Shakspeare ana Milton, a similar 
recommendation may be given- It is scarcely neces- 
sary to mention how much an acquaintance with them 
has availed the great orator who is now the pride and 
ornament of the English bar, a character that may be 
appealed to with singular propriety, when we are 
contending for the universality of genius. 

The identity, or at least the great similarity, of the 
talents necessary to excellence in poetry, oratory, 
painting, and war, will be admitted by some, who 
will be inclined to dispute the extension of the position 
to science or natural knowledge. On this occasion I 
may quote the following observations of Sir William 
Jones, whose own example will however far exceed in 
weight the authority of his precepts. " Abul Ola had 
so flourishing a reputation, that several persons of un- 
common genius were ambitious of learning the art of 
poetry from so able an instructer. His most illustri- 
ous scholars were Feleki and Khakani, who were no 
less eminent for their Persian compositions, than for 
their skill in~every branch of pure and mixed mathe- 
matics, and particularly in astronomy ; a striking 
proof that a sublime poet may become master of any 
kind of learning which he chooses to profess ; since a 
fine imagination, a lively wit, an easy and copious 
style, cannot possibly obstruct the acquisition of any 
science whatever ; but must necessarily assist him in 
•is studies, and shorten his labour."— Sir William 
Jones'* Work*, vol. ii. p. 317. 



absolved from those rules of prudence by which hum- 
bler minds are restiicted. They are too much dispos- 
ed to abandon themselves to their own sensations and 
to sutler life to pass away without regular exertions or 
settled purpose. 

But though men of genius are generally prone to in- 
dolence, with them indolence and unhappiness are in 
a more especial manner allied. The unbidden splen- 
dours of imagination may indeed at times irradiate the 
gloom which inactivity produces ; but such visions, 
though bright, are transient, and serve to cast the re- 
alities of life into a deeper shade. In bestowing great 
talents, Nature seems very generally to have imposed 
on the possessor the necessity of exertion, if he would 
escape wretchedness. Better for him than sloth, toils 
the most painful, or adventures the most hazardous. 
Happier to him than idleness, were the condition of 
the peasant, earning with incessant labour his scanty 
food ; or that of the sailor, though hanging on the yard- 
arm, and wrestling with the hurricane. 

The observations might be amply illustrated by the 
biography of men of genius of every denomination, and 
more especially by the biography of the poets. Of this 
last description of men, few seem to have enjoyed the 
usual portion of happiness that falls to the lot of hu- 
manity, those excepted who have cultivated poetry as 
an elegant amusement in the hours of relaxation from 
other occupations, or the small number who have en- 
gaged with success in the greater or more arduous at- 
tempts of the muse, in which all the faculties of the 
mind have been fully and permanently employed. — 
Even taste, virtue, and comparative independence, do 
not seem capable of bestowing on men of genius, peace 
and tranquillity, without such occupation as may give 
regular and healthful exercise to the faculties of body 
and mind. The amiable Shenstone has left us the re- 
cords of his imprudence, of his indolence, and of his 
unhappiness, amidst the shades of the Leasowes ;' 
and the virtues, the learning, and the genius of Gray, 
equal to the loftiest attempts of the epic muse, failed 
to procure him in the academic bowers of Cambridge, 
that tranquillity and that respect which less fastidi 
oneness of taste, and greater constancy and vigour of 
exertion would have doubtless obtained. 

It is more necessary that men of genius should be 
aware of the importance ot self command, and of exer 
tion, because their indolence is peculiarly exposed, 
not merely to unhappiness, but to diseases of mind, and 
to errors of conduct, which are generally fatal. This 
interesting subject deserves a particular investigation ; 
but we must content ourselves with one or two cursory 
remarks. Relief is sometimes sought from the melan- 
choly of indolence in practices, which for a time sooth 
and gratify the sensations, but which in the end in- 
volve the sufferer in darker gloom. To command the 
external circumstances by which happiness is effected, 
is not in human power ; but there are various sub- 
stances in nature which operate on the system of the 
nerves, so as to give a fictitious gayety to the ideas of 
imagination, and to alter the effect of the external 
impressions which we receive. Opium is chiefly em- 
ployed for this purpose by the disciples of Mahomet 
and the inhabitants of Asia ; but alcohol, the principle 
of intoxication in vinous and spirituous liquors, ispie- 
ferred in Europe, and is universally used in the Chris- 
tian world.* Under the various wounds to which in- 

* See his Letters, which, as a display of the effects 
of poetical idleness, are highly instructive. 

t There are a great number of other substances, 
which may be considered under this point of view. 
Tobacco, tea, and coffee, are of the number. These 
substances essentially differ from each other in their 
qualities ; and an inquiry into the particular effects 
of each on the health, morals, and happiness of those 
who use them, would be curious and useful. The ef- 
fects of wine and of opium on the temperament and 
sensibility, the Editor intended to have discussed in 



44 



THE LIFE OF BURNS 



dolent sensibility is exposed, and under tne gloomy 
apprehensions respecting futurity to which it is often a 
prey, how strong is the temptation to have recourse 
to an antidote by which the pain of those wounds is 
suspended, by which the heart is exhilarated, visions 
uf happiness are excited in the mind, and the forms of 
external nature clothed with new beauty 1 

" Elysium opens round, 
A pleasing frenzy buoys the lighteu'd soul, 
And sanguine hopes dispel your fleeting care ; 
And what was difficult, and what was dire, 
Yields to your prowess, and superior stars : 
The happiest you of all that e'er were mad, 
Or are, or shall be, could this folly last. 
But soon your heaven is gone ; a heavier gloom 
Shuts o'er your head— 



Morning comes ; your cares return 
With ten fold rage. An anxious stomach well 
Maybe endured ; so may the throbbing head : 
But such a dim delirium ; such a dream 
Involves you ; such a dastardly despair 
Unmans yoursoul, as m-d'ning l-enlheus felt, 
When, baited round Cithajion's cruel sides, 
He saw two suns and double Thebes ascend." 

Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health. 

Such are the pleasures and the pains of intoxication, 
•s they occur in the temperament of sensibility, ties 
cribed by a genuine poet, with a degree of truth and 
energy which nothing but experience could have dicta- 
ted. There are, indeed, some individuals of this tem- 
perament on whom wine produces no cheering influ- 
ence. On some, even in very moderate quantities, its 
effects are painfully irritating ; in large draughts it ex- 
cites dark and melancholy ideas : and in draughts still 
larger, the fierceness of insanity itself. Such men are 
happily exempted from a temptation, to which expe- 
rience teaches us the finest dispositions often yield, and 
the influence of which, when strengthened by habit, it 
is a humiliating truth, that the most powerful minds 
have not been able to resist. 

this place at some length ; but he found the subject too 
extensive and too professional to be introduced with 
propriety. The difficulty of abandoning any of these 
narcotics (if we may so term them,) when inclination 
is strengthened by habit, is well known. Johnson, in 
his dist resses, had experienced the cheering but treach- 
erous influence of wine, and by a powerful effort aban- 
doned it. He was obliged, however, to use tea as a 
substitute, and this was the solace to which he con- 
stantly had recourse under his habitual melancholy. 
The praises of wine form many of the most beautiful 
lyrics of the poets of Greece and Rome and of modern 
Europe. Whether opium, which produces visions still 
more ecstatic, has been the theme of the eastern poems, 
1 do not know. 

Wine is drunk in small quantitiei at a time, in 
company, where, for a lime, it promotes harmony 
and social affection. Opium is swallowed by the 
Asiatics in full doses at once, and the inebriate re- 
tires to the solitary indulgence of his delicious imagi- 
nations. Hence the wine drinker appears in a supe- 
rior light to the imbiber of opium, a distinction which 
he owes more to the form than to the quality of hit 
io/wr. 



It is the more necessary for men of genius to be 
on their guard against the habitual use of wine, be- 
cause it is apt to steal on them insensibly : and be 
cause the temptation to excess usually presents itself 
to them in their soci.il hours, when they are alive only 
to warm and generous emotions, and when prudeuce 
and moderation are often contemned as selfishness and 
timidity. 

It is the more necessary for them to guard against ex- 
cess in the use of wine, because on them its effects are, 
physically and morally, in an especial manner injuri- 
ous. In proportion to its stimulating influence on lbs 
system (on which the pleasurable sensations depend,) 
is the debility that ensues ; a debility that destroys 
digestion, and terminates in habitual fever, dropsy, 
jaundice, paralysis, or insanity. As the strength of 
the booy decays, the volition fails ; in proportion as 
the sensations are soothed and gratified, the seusi 
bility increases ; and morbid sensibility is the parent 
of indolence, because, while it impairs the regulating 
power of the mind, it exaggerates all the obstacles tu 
exertion. Activity, perseverance, and aelf-Command, 
become more and more dillicolt, and the great purposes 
of utility, patriotism, or ol honourable ambition, winch 
had occupied the imagination, die away in fruitless i e- 
sululions or in feeble efforts. 

To apply these observations to the subject of our me- 
moirs, would be a useless as well as a painful taak. 
It is, indeed, a duty we owi to the living, not to allow 
. i admiration of great genius, or even our pity for its 
unhappy destiny, to conceal or disguise its errors. Bui 
thtre are sentiments of respect, and even of tender- 
ness, with which this duty should be performed ; there 
is an awful sanctu.y which invest the mansions of the 
dead : and let those who moralize over the graves of 
their contemporaries, reflect with humility on their 
own errors, nor forget how soon they may themselves 
require the candour aud the sympathy they are called 
upou to bestow. 



SOON after the death of Burns, the following arti- 
cle appeared in the Dumfries Journal, from which it 
was copied into the Kdiuhurgh newspapers, and into 
various other periodical publications, his from the 
elegant pen of a lady already alluded to in the course 
of these memoirs,* whose exertions for the family of 
our bard, in the circles of literature and fashion iu 
which she moves, have done her so much honour. 

" The attention of the public seems to be much oc- 
cupied at present with the loss it hasrecently sustain, 
ed iu the death of the Caledonian poet, Bobert Burns , 
a loss calculated to be severely felt .nroughout the lit- 
erary world, as well as lamented iu the narrower 
sphere of private friendship. It was not, therelore, 
probable, that such an event should be long unattended 
with the accustomed profusion of posthumous anec- 
dotes and memoirs which are usually circulated im- 
mediately alter the death of every rare and celebrated 
personage ; I had, however, conceived no intention of 
appropriating to myself the privilege of criticising 
Burns's writings and character, or of anticipating on 
the province of a biographer. 

" Conscious, indeed, of my own inability to do jus- 
tice to such a subject, I should have continued wholly 
silent, had misrepresentation and caliininly been less 
industrious ; but a regard to truth, no less than affec- 
tion for the memory of a friend, must now justify my 
offering to the public a few at least of those observa- 
tions which an intimate acquaintance with Burns, 
and the neqnenl opportunities I have had of observing 
equally Ins happy qualities and his failings for several 
years past, have enabled me to communicate. 

" It will actually be an injustice done to Burns'e 
character, not only by future generations and forcig» 
countries, but even by his native Scotland, and per- 
haps a number of his contemporaries, that, ne i* gence> 

•Seep. 80. 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



45 



•Uy talked of and considered, with reference to his po- 
etical talents only : for the fact is, even allowing his 
Seat and original genius its due tribute of admiration, 
at poetry (1 appeal to all who have had the advan- 
tage of being personally acquainted with him) was ac- 
tually not his forte. Many others, perhaps, may 
have ascended to prouder heights in the region of Par- 
nassus, but none certainly everoutshone Burns in the 
charms — the sorcery, I would almost call it, of fasci- 
nating conversation, the spontaneous eloquence of so- 
cial argument, or the unstudied poignancy of brilliant 
repartee ; nor was any man, I believe, ever gifted with 
a larger portion of the 'vividavis anirr.i.' His per- 
sonal endowments were perfectly correspondent to the 
qualifications of his mind ; bis form was manly ; his 
action, energy itself; devoid in a great measure per- 
haps oi those graces, of that polish, acquired only in 
the refinement of societies where in early life he could 
have no opportunities of mixing ; but where such was 
the irresistible power of attraction that encircled him, 
though his appearance and manners were always pe- 
culiar, he never failed to delight and to excel. His 
figure seemed to bear testimony to his earlier destina- 
tion and employments. It seemed rather moulded by 
nature for the rough exercises of agriculture, than the 
gentler cultivation of the Belles Letters. His features 
were stamped with the hardy character of indepen- 
dence, and the firmness of conscious, though not arro- 
gant, pre-eminence ; the animated expressions oi 
countenance were almost peculiar to himself; the ra- 
pid lightnings of his eyes were always the harbingers 
of some flash of genius, whether they darted the fiery 
glances of insulted and indignant superiority, or beam- 
ed with the impassioned sentiment of fervent and im- 
petuous affections. His voice alone could improve up- 
on tne magic of his eye : sonorous, replete with the 
finest modulations, it alternately captivated the ear 
with the melody of poetic numbers, the perspicuity of 
nervous reasoning, or the ardent sallies of enthusiastic 
patriotism. The keenness ot satire wa3, I am alinogi 
at a loss whether to say, his forte or his foible ; tor 
though nature had endowed him with a portion of the 
most pointed excellence in that dangerous talent, he 
suffered it too often to be the vehicle of personal, and 
•ometimes unfounded animosities. It was not always 
that sportiveness of humour, that ' unwary pleasantry' 
which Sterne has depicted with touches so conciliato- 
ry, but the darts of ridicule were frequently directed 
as the caprice of the instant suggested, or as the alter- 
cations of parlies and of persona happened to kindle 
the restlessness of his spirit into interest or aversion. 
This, however, was not invariably the case ; his wit 
(which is no usual matter indeed) had always the start 
of his judgment, and would lead him to the indulgence 
of raillery uniformly acute but often unaccompanied 
with the least desire to wound. The suppression of 
an arch and full-pointed bou-mot, from the dread of 
offending its object, the sage of Zurich very properly 
classes as a virtue only to be sought for in the Calen- 
dar of Saints ; if so, Burns must not be too severely 
dealt with for being rather deficient in it. He paid for 
his mischievous wit as dearly as any one could do. 
' 'Twas no extravagant arithmetic,' to say of him, as 
was said of Yorick, that ' for every ten jokes he got a 
hundred enemies :' but much allowance will be made 
by a candid mind for the splenetic warmth of a spirit 
whom ' distress had spited with the world,' and which 
unbounded in its intellectual sallies and pursuits, con- 
tinually experienced the curbs imposed by the way- 
wardness of his fortune. The vivacity of his wishes 
and temper was indeed checked by almost habitual 
disappointments, which sat heavy on a heart that 
acknowledged the ruling passion of independance, 
without ever having been placed beyond the grasp of 
peuury. His soul was never languid or inactive, and 
his genius was extinguished only with the last spark 
of retreating life. His passions rendered him, accord- 
ing as they disclosed themselves in affection or antipa- 
thy, an object of enthusiastic attachment, orof decided 
enmity ; tor he possessed none of that negative insi- 
pidity of character, whose love might be regarded with 
indifference, or whose resentment could be considered 
with contempt. In this, it should seem, the temper of 
his associates took the tincture from his own ; (or he 
acknowledged in the universe but two classes of objects, 
ttfcQK of adoration the most fervent, or of aversion the 



most uncontrollable ; and it has teen frequently a re- 
proach to him, that, unsusceptible of indifference, 
often hating where he ought only to have despised, he 
alternately opened his heart and poured forth the trea- 
sures of his understanding to such as were incapable 
of appreciating the homage ; and elevated to the 
privileges of an adversary some who were unqualified 
in all respects for the honour of a contest, so distin- 
guished. 

" It is said that the celebrated Dr. Johnson profess- 
ed to ' love a good hater,' — a temperament that would 
have singularly adapted him to cherish a prepossession 
in favour of our bard, who perhaps fell but little short 
even of the surly Doctor in this qualification, as long 
as the disposition to ill-will continued ; but the warmth 
of his passions was fortunately corrected by their ver- 
satility. He was seldom, indeed never, implacable in 
his resentments, and sometimes, it has been alleged, 
not inviolably faithful in his engagements of friendship. 
Much, indeed, has been said about his inconstancy 
and caprice ; but I am inclined to believe that they 
originated less in a leviiy of sentiment, than from an 
extreme impetuosity of feeling, which rendered him 
prompt to take umbrage ; and his sensations of pique, 
where he fancied he had discovered the traces of neg- 
lect, scorn, or unkindness, took their measure of as- 
perity from the overflowings of the opposite sentiment 
which preceded them, and which seldom failed to re- 
gain its ascendency in his bosom on the return of calmer 
reflection. He was candid and manly in the avowal 
of his errors, and his avowal was a. reparation. His 
native fiirte never forsaking him for a moment, the 
value of a frank acknowledgment was enhanced ten 
fold towards a generous mind, from its never being at 
tended with servility. His mind, organized only for 
the stronger and more acute operations of the pas- 
sions, was impracticable to the efforts of supercilious- 
ness that would have depressed it into humility, and 
equally superior to the encroachments of venal sugges- 
tions that might have led him into the mazes of hypoc 
risy. 

" It has been observed, that he wa3 far from averse 
to the incense of flattery, and could receive it tem- 
pered with less delicacy than might have been ex- 
pected, as he seldom transgressed extravagantly in 
that way himself; where he paid a compliment, it 
might indeed claim the power of intoxication, as ap 
probation from him was always an honest tribute from 
the warmth and sincerity of his heart. It has been 
sometimes represented by those who it would seem, 
had a view to depreciate, though they could not hope 
wholly to obscure that native brilliancy, which the 
powers of this extraordinary man had invariably be- 
stowed on every thing that came from his lips or pen, 
that the history of the Ayrshire plough-boy was an in- 
j genious fiction, fabricated for the purposes of obtain- 
ing the interest of the great, and enhancing the merits 
of what required no foil. The Cotter's Satuiday 
Night, Tarn o' Shanter, and The Mountain Daisy, 
besides a number of later productions, where the matu- 
rity of his genius will be readily traced, and which will 
be given to the public as soon as his friends have col- 
lected and arranged them, speak sufficiently for them- 
selves ; and had they fallen from a hand more digni- 
fied in the ranks of society than that of a peasant, they 
had, perhaps, bestowed as unusual a grace there, as 
even in the humbler shade of rustic inspiration from 
whence they realy sprung. 

" To the obscure scene of Burn's education, and to 
the laborious, though honourable station of rural in- 
dustry, in which his parentage enrolled him, almost 
every inhabitant of the south of Scotland can give tes- 
timony. His only surviving brother, Gilbert Burns, 
now guides the ploughshare of his forefathers in Ayr- 
shire, at a farm near Mauchline ;* and our poet' 
eldest son (a lad of nine years of age, whose early dia 
positions already prove him to be in some measure Uia 

* This very respectable and very superior man ie 
now removed to Dumfriesshire. He rents lands on tha 
estate of Closeburn, and is a tenant of the venerable 
Dr. Monteith, 1800.) E. 



46 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



Inheritor o{ li is father's talents as well at indigence) 
has been destined by liis family lo tlie humble employ- 
ment of the loom.* 

" That Burns had received no classical education, 
and was acquainted with the Greek and Roman au- 
thors only through the medium of translations, is a 
fact of which all who were in the habits of conversing 
with him might readily be convinced. I have, indeed, 
seldom observed bin) to at a loss in conversation, un- 
less where the dead languages and their writers have 
been the subjects of discussion. When I have pressed 
him to tell me why he never applied himself to acquire 
the Latin, in particular, a language which his happy 
memory would have soon enabled him to be master 
ot, tie used only to reply with a smile, that he had al 
ready learned all the Latin he desired to know, and 
that was omnia vincit amor ; a sentence, that from his 
Writings and most favourite pursuits, it should un- 
doubtedly seem that he was most thoroughly versed in : 
but 1 really believe his classic erudition extended little, 
if any, further. 

" The penchant Burns had uniformly acknowledged 
for the festive pleasures of the table, and towards the 
fairer objects of nature's creation, has been the rally- 
ing point from whence the attacks of his censors have 
been uniformly directed : ami lo these, it must be con- 
fessed, he showed himself no stoic. 1 lis poetical pieces 
blend with alternate happiness of description, 'the frolic 
spirit of the flowing liowi, or melt t lie heart to the 
tender and impassioned sentiments in which beauty 
always taught him to pour forth his own. But who 
would wish to reprove the feelings he has consecrated 
With such lively touches of nature? And where is the 
rugged moralist who will persuade us so far to, ' chill 
the genial current of the soul,' a3 to regret that Ovid 
ever celebrated his Corinna or that Auacreon sung be- 
neath his vine? 

" I will not, however, undertake to be the apologist 
of the irregularities even of a man of genius, though 
I believe it is as certain that genius never was free from 
irregularities, as that their absolution may, in a great 
measure, be justly claimed, since it is perfectly evi- 
dent that the world had continued very stationary in 
its intellectual acquirements, had it never given birth 
•o any but men of plain sense. Evenness of conduct, 
and a due regard to the decorums of the world, have 
been so rarely seen to move hand in hand with genius, 
that some have gone so far as to say, though there I 
cannot wholly acquiesce, that they are even incompa- 
tible, besides the frailties that cast their shade over the 
splendour of superior merit, are nrwre conspicuously 
glaring than where they are the attendants of mere 
mediocrity. It is only on the gem we are disturbed to 
see the dust . the pe'ihle may be soiled, and we never 
regard it. The eccentric intuitions of genius too often 
yield the soul to the wild effervescence of desires, al- 
ways unbounded, and sometimes equally dangerous to 
the repose of others as fatal IS its own. No wonder, 
then, if virtue herself be sometimes lost in the blaze of 
kindling animation, or that the calm monitions of rea 
son are not invariably found sufficient to fetter an ima- 
gination, which scorns the narrow limits and restric 
.ions that would chain it to the level of ordinary minds. 
The child of nature, the child of sensibility, unschool- 
ed ill the rigid pi ecepts of philosophy, too often unable 
to control the passions which proved a source of fre- 
quent errois and misfortunes to him, Burns made his 
own artless apology in language more impressive than 
all the argumenlatory vindications in the world could 
do. in one of his own poems, where he delineates the 
jradual expansion of Ins mind to the lessons of the ' tu- 
telary muse,' whocmicludes an address to her pupil, al- 
most unique for simplicity and beautiful poetry, with 
these lines . 

14 1 saw thy pulse's madd'ning play 
Wild send thee pleasure's devious way ; 
Misled by fancy's meteor ray 

By passion driven ; 

• TbU destination is now altered. (1300.) F. 



But yet the light that led astrsy 

Was light from heaven."* 

" I have already transgressed beyond the bounds 1 
had proposed lo myself, on first committing this sketch 
to paper, which comprehends what at least 1 have been 
led to deem the leading features of Burns's mind and 
character : a literary critique 1 do not aim at ; mine 
is wholly fulfilled, if in these pages I have been able lo 
delineate any of those strong trails, which raised him 
from the plough, where lie passed theibleak morning of 
his life, weaving Ins Hide wreath of posy with the wild 
field -flowei s that sprang around his cuttage, to lhat en- 
viable eminence of literary fame, where Scotland will 
long cherish his memory with delight and giatitude; 
and proudly remember, that beneath her cold sky a 
genius was ripened, without care or culture, thai 
would have done honour to dimes more .favourable to 
those luxuries — that warmth of colouring and fancy 
in which he so eminently excelled. 

" From several paragraphs I have noticed in the pub- 
lic prints, ever since the idea of sending this sketch lo 
some one of them was formed I find privaf animosities 
have not yel subsided, and that envy has not exhaust 
ed all her shafts. 1 still trust, however, that honest 
fame will be permanently affixed to Burns's charac- 
ter, which I think it will be found he has merited by 
the candid and impartial among his countrymen. And 
where a recollection of the imprudence that sullied his 
brighter qualifications interpose, let the imperfections 
of all human excellence be remembered at the same 
time, leaving those inconsistencies, which alternately 
exalted his nature into ihe seraph, and sunk it ag» : n 
into the man, to the tribunal which alone can invent 
gate the labyrinths of the human heart — 

' Where they alike in trembling hope repose, 
— The bosom of his father and his God.' 

GRAY'S ELEGY 
" Annandale, Aug. 7, 1696." 

After this account of the life and personal character 
ofBurns, it may be expected that some inquiry should 
be made into his literary merits. It will not, however, 
be necessary to enter very minutely into this investiga- 
tion. If fiction be, as some suppose, the soul of poetry, 
no one had ever less pretensions to the name of poet 
than Burns. Though he has displayed great powers 
of imagination, yet the subject on which he has writ- 
ten, are seldom, il ever, imaginary ; his poems, as well 
as his letters, may he considered as the effusions of his 
sensibility, and the transcript of his pwn musings on 
the real incidents of his humble life. If we add, that 
they also contain most happy delineations of the cha- 
racters, manners, and scenery that presented them- 
selves to his observation, we shall include almost all 
the subjects of his muse. His writings may, therefore, 
be regarded as affording a great part of thedata on 
which our account of his personal character has been 
founded ; and most of the observations we have appli- 
ed to the man, are applicable, with little variation, to 
the poet. 

The impression of his birth, and of his original 
station in life, was not more evident on his form and 
manners, than on his poetical productions. The inci- 
dents which form the subjects of his poems, 'hough 
some of them highly interesting, and susceptible of 
poetical imagery, are incidents in the life of a peasant 
who takes no pains to disguise the lowliness of his con- 
dition, nor to throw into shade the circumstances at. 
tending it, which more feeble or more artificial mind* 
would have endeavoured to conceal. The same rude- 
ness and inattention appears in the formation of his 
rhymes, which are frequently incorrect, while the 
measure in which many of the poems are written, has 
little of the pomp or harmony of modern versification, 
and is indeed to an English ear, strange and uncouth. 
The greater part of his earlier poems are written in 
the dialect of his country, which is obscure, if not 
unintelligible '.o Englishmen ; and which, though. »t 

♦ Vide the Vision— Duan 34, 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



•till adheres more or les* to the speech of almost ev- 
•rjr Scotchman, all the polite and the ambitious are 
bow endeavouring to banish from their tongues as 
well as their writings. The use of it in composition 
natui ally therefore calls up ideas of vulgarity in the 
mind. These singularities are increased by the 
character of the poet, who delights to express him- 
self with a simplicity that approaches to nakedness, 
and with an unmeasured energy that often alarms 
delicacy, and sometimes offends taste. Hence, in ap- 
proaching him, the first impression is perhaps repul- 
sive : there is an air of coarseness about him which is 
difficultly reconciled with our established notions cf 
poetical excellence. 

As the reader however becomes better acquainted 
with the poet, the effects of his peculiarities lessen. 
He perceives in his poems, even on the lowest subjects, 
expressions of sentiment, and delineations of man- 
ners, which are highly interesting. The scenery he 
describes is evidently taken from real life ; the cha- 
racters he introduces, and the incidents he relates, 
have the impression of nature and truth. His humour, 
though wild and unbridled, is irresistibly amusing, 
and is sometimes heightened in its effects by the in- 
troduction of emotions of tenderness, with which 
genuine humour so happily unites. Nor is this the 
extent of his power. The reader, as he examines 
farther, discovers that the poet is not confined to the 
descriptive, the humorous, or the pathetic ; he is 
found, as occasion offers, to rise with ease into the 
terrible and the sublime. Every where he appears 
devoid of artifice, perfoiming what he attempts with 
little apparent effort ; and impressing on the offspring 
of his fancy the stamp of his understanding. The 
reader, capable of forming a just estimate of poetical 
talents, discovers in these circumstances marks of 
uncommon genius, and is willing to investigate more 
minutely its nature and its claims to originality. This 
last point we shall examine first. 

That Burns had not the advantages of a classical 
education, or of any degree of acquaintance with ihe 
Greek or Roman writers in their original dress, has 
appeared in the history of his life. He acquired in- 
deed some knowledge of the French language, but it 
does not appear that he was ever much conversant in 
French literature, nor is there any evidence of his 
having derived any of his poetical stores from that 
source. With the English classics he became well ac- 
quainted in the course of his life, and the effects of this 
acquaintance are observable in his latter productions ; 
but the character and style of his poetry were formed 
very early, and the model which he followed, in as 
far as he can be said to have had one, is to be sought 
for in the wo.'ks of the poets who have written in the 
Scottish dialect — in the works of such of them more 
especially, as are familiar to the peasantry of Scot- 
land. Some observations on these may form a proper 
introduction to a more particular examination of the 
poetry of Burns. The studies of the Editor in this 
direction are indeed very recent and very imperfect. 
It would have been imprudent for him to have entered 
on this subject at all, but for the kindness of Mr. Ram- 
say, of Ochtertyre, whose assistance he is proud to 
acknowledge, and to whom the reader must ascribe 
whatever is of any value in the following imperfect 
sketch of literary compositions in the Scottish idiom. 

It is a circumstance not a little curious, and which 
does not seem to be satisfactorily explained, that in 
the thirteenth century, the language of the two Brit- 
ish nations, if at all different, differed only in the di- 
alect, the Gaelic in the one, like the Welsh and Armo- 
ric in the other, being confined to the mountainous 
districts.* The English under the Edwards, and the 
Scots under Wallace and Bruce.fspoke the same lan- 
guage. We may observe also, that in Scotland the 
history of poetry ascends to a period nearly as remote 
tt* in England. Barbour, and Blind Harry, James the 
First, Dunbar, Douglas and Lindsay, who lived in the 
fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, were 

* Historical Essay on Scottish Song, p. 16, by M. 



Coeval with the fathers of poetry in England ; and .a 
the opinion of Mr. Wharton, not inferior to them u» 
genius or in composition. Though the language of the 
two countries gradually deviated from each other du- 
ring this period, yet the difference on the whole wae 
not considerable ; not perhaps greater than between 
the different dialects of the different parts of England 
in ourown time. 

At the death of James the Fifth, in 1542, the lan- 
guage of Scotland was in a flourishing condition, 
wanting only writers in prose equal to those in versa. 
Twocircumstances, propitious on the whole, operated 
to prevent this. The first was the passion of the Scota 
for composition in Latin ; and the second, the acces- 
sion of James the Sixth to the English throne. It may 
easily be imagined, that if Buchanan had devoted his 
admirable talents, even in part, to the cultivations of 
his native tongue, as was done by the revivers of letters 
in Italy, he would have left compositions in that lan- 
guage which might have incited other men of genius 
to have followed his example,* and given duration to 
the language itself. The union of the two crowns in 
the person of James, overthrew all reasonable expec- 
tation of this kind. That monarch seated on the En- 
glish throne, would no longer suffer himself to be ad- 
dressed in the rude dialect in which the Scottish cler 
gy had so often insulted his dignity. He encouraged 
Latin or English only, both of which he prided him 
self on writing with purity, though he himself never 
could acquire the English pronunciation, but spoke 
with a Scottish idiom and intonation to the last- 
Scotsmen of talents declined writing in their native 
language, which they knew was not acceptable to their 
learned and pedantic monarch ; and at a time when 
national prejudice and enmity prevailed to a great 
degree, they disdained to study the niceties of the 
English tongue, though of so much easier acquisition 
than a dead language. Lord Stirling and Drummond, 
of Hawthornden, the only Scotsmen who wrote poetry 
in those times, were exceptions. They studied the 
language of England, and composed in it with preci- 
sion and elegance. They were however the last of 
their countrymen who deserved to be considered as 
poets in that century. The muses of Scotland sunk 
into silence, and did not again raise their voices for a 
period of eighty years. 

To what causes are we to attribute this extreme 
depression among a people comparatively learned, 
enterprising, and ingenious? Shall we impute it to 
the fanaticism of the covenanters, or to the tyranny of 
the house of Stuart, alter their restoration to the 
throne ? Doubtless these causes operated, but they 
seem unequal to account for the effect. In England, 
similar distractions and oppression took place, yet po- 
etry flourished there in a remarkable degree. During 
this period, Cowley, and Waller, and Dryden sung, 
and Milton raised his strain of unparalleled grandeur. 
To the causes already mentioned, another must be 
added, in accounting for the torpor of Scottish litera- 
ture — the want of a proper vehicle for men of genius 
to employ. The civil wars had frightened away the 
Latin Muses, and no standard had been established 
of the Scottish tongue, which was deviating still far- 
ther from the pure English idiom. 

The revival of literature in Scotland may be dated 
from the establishment of the union, or rather from 
the extinction of the rebellion in 1715. The nations 
being finally incorporated, it was clearly seen that 
their tongues must in the end incorporate also ; or 
rather indeed that the Scottish language must degene- 
rate into a provincial idiom, to be avoided by those 
who would aim at distinction in letters, or rise tc em«» 
nence in the united legislature. 

Soon after this, a band of men of genius appeared, 
who studied the English classics, and imitated their 
beauties, in the same manner as they studied the clas 
sics of Greece and Rome. They had admirable models if 
composition lately presented to them by the writer* ta 

* e. g. The Authors of the Delicia Poetarum So-x 
torum, !(c. 



is 



THE LIFE OP BURNS. 



the reign of Q.ueen Anne ; particularly in the periodi- 
cal papers published by Steele, Addison, and their as- 
sociated friends, which circulated widely through 
Scotland, and diffused every where a taste for purity 
of style and sentiment, and for critical disquisition. 
At length the Scottish writers succeeded in English 
composition, and a union was formed by the liteiary 
talents, us well as of the legislatures of the two nations. 
On this occasion the poets took the lead. While 
Henry, Home," Dr. Wallace, and their learned associ- 
ates, were only laying in their intellectual stores, and 
studying to clear themselves ol their Scottish idioms, 
Thomson Mallet, and Hamilton of Bangour had made 
their appearance before the public, and been enrolled 
on the list of English poets. The writers in prose fol- 
lowed a numerous and powerful band, and poured 
their ample stores in the general stream of British lit- 
erature. Scotland possessed her four universities be- 
fore the accession of lames to the English throne. Im- 
mediately before the union, she acquired her parochi 
al schools. These establishments combining happily 
together, made the elements of knowledge of easy ac- 
quisition, and presented a direct path, by which the 
ardent student might be carried along into the re- 
cesses of science or learning. As civil broils ceased, 
and faction and prejudice gradually died away, a wider 
field was opened to literary ambition, and the influ- 
ence of the Scottish institutions for instruction; on the 
productions of the press, became more and more appa- 



ll seems indeed probable, that the establishment of 
the parochial schools produced effects on the rural 
muse of Scotland also, which have not hitherto been 
suspected, and which, though less splendid in their 
nature, are not however to be regarded as trivial, 
whether we consider the happiness or the morals of ihe 
people. 

There is some reason to believe, that the original 
inhabitants of the British isles possessed a peculiar 
and interesting species of music, which being banished 
from the plains by the successive invasions of the Sax- 
ons, Danes, and Normans, was preserved with the 
native race, in the wilds of Ireland and in the moun- 
tains of Scotland and Wales. The Irish, the Scot- 
tish, arrd the Welsh music differ, indeed, from each 
other, but the difference may be considered as in dia- 
lect onlv, and probably produced by the influence of 
time, and like the different dialects of their common 
language. If this conjecture be true, the Scottish 
music must be more immediately of Highland origin, 
and the Lowland tunes, though now of a character 
somewhat distinct, must have descended from the 
mountains in remote ages. Whatevercredit maybe 
given to conjectures, evidently involved in great un- 
certainty, there can be no doubt that the Scottish pea- 
santry have been long in possession of a number of 
songs and ballads composed in their native dialect, 
and sung in their native music. The subjects ol these 
compositions are such as most interested the sipiple 
inhabitants, and in the succession of time vari-d prob- 
ably as the condition of the society varied. During 
the separation and the hostility of the two nations, 
these songs and ballads, as far as our imperfect docu- 
ments enable us to judge, were chiefly warlike ; such 
as the Hunt is of Cheviot, and the Battle of H-irloie. 
After the union of the two crowns, when a certain de- 
gree of peace and of tranquillity took place, the rurai 
mflse of .Scotland breathed in softer accents. " In the 
want of real evidence respecting the history of our 
songs," says Mi . Ramsay of Ochtertyre, "recourse 
may be had to conjecture. One would be disposed to 
think that the most beautiful of the Scottish tunes 
were clothed with new words alter the union of the 
crowns. The inhabitants of the borders, who had for- 
merly been warriors from choice, and husbandmen 
from" necessity, either quitted the country, or tt 
transformed into real shepherds, easy in the. r circum- 
stances, and satisfied with their lot. Some sparks ol 
that spirit of chivalry for which they are celebrated by 
Froiasart, remained, sufficient to inspire elevation ol 
ssoJmeiU and gallantry towards the fair sex. The 



LotJ K rimes. 



familiarity and kindness which had long subsisted b*. 
hetween the gentry and the peasantry, could not all at 
once be obliterated, and this connexion tended to 
sweeten rural life. In this state of innocence, ease 
and tranquillity of mind, the love of poetry and music, 
would still maintain its ground, though it would natur- 
ally assume a form congenial to the more peaceful 
state of society. The minstrels, whose metrical tales 
rrsed once to rouse the borderers like the trumpet's 
sound, had been by an order of the legislature (in 
1579,) classed with rogues and vagabonds, and at- 
tempted to be suppressed. Knox and his disciples in- 
fluenced the Scottish parliament, hot contended in 
vain with her rural muse. Amidst our Arcadian vales, 
probably on the banks of the Tweed, or some of its 
tributary streams, one or more original geniuses may 
have arisen, who were destined to give a new turn to 
the taste of their countrymen. They would see that 
the events and pursuits which chequer private life were 
the proper subjects for popular poetry. Hove, which 
had formerly held a divided sway with glory and am- 
bition, became now the master passion uf the soul. To 
portray in lively and delicate colouis, though with a 
sty hand, the hopes and fears lhat agitate the breast 
ol the love-sick swain, or forlorn maiden, affords ample 
scope to the rural poet. Love-songs of which Tibullus 
himself would not have been ashamed, might be com- 
posed by an uneducated rustic with a slight tincture of 
rs ; or if in these songs, the character of the rustie 
be sometimes assumed, the truth of character, and 
the language of nature, are preserved. With unaffect- 
ed simplicity and tenderness, topics are urged, most 
kely to soften the hearts of a cruel and coy mistress, 
to regain a tickle lover. Even In such as are of a me- 
lancholy cast, a ray of hope breaks through, and dis- 
the deep and settled gloom which characterizes 
the sweetest of the Highland luinngs, or vocal airs.— 
Nor- are these songs ail plaintive; many of them are 
lively and humorous, and some appear to us coarse 
aird indelicate. They seem, however, genuine de»- 
criptions of the manners of arr energetic and sequester- 
ed people in their hours of mirth and festivity, though 
in their portraits some objects are brought into open 
view, which more fastidious painters wou'd have 
thrown into shade. 

" As those rural poets sung for amusemert not for 
gain, their effusions seldom exceeded a love-song, or a 
ballad of satire or humour, wnich, like the works of 
the elder minstrels, were seldom committed to writing, 
but treasured up in the memory of their friends and 
neighbours. Neither known to the learned, nor pat- 
ronized by the great, these rustic bards lived and died 
in obscurity ; and by a strange fatality, their story, 
and even (heir very names have been forgotten.* When 
proper models for pastoral songs were produced, there 
would be no want of imitators. To succeed in this 
species of composition, soundness of understanding, 
and sensibility of heart were more requisite than 
flights of imagination or pomp of numbers. Great 
changes have certainly taken place in Scottish song- 
writing, though we cannot trace the steps of change ; 
and few of the pieces admired in Uueen Mary's time 
are now to be discovered irr modern collections. It is 
possible, though not probable, that the music may have 
remained nearly the same, though the words to the 
tunes were entirely ne\v-moddled."t 

These conjectures are highly ingenious. It cannot 
however, be presumed, that the state of ease and tran- 

* In the Pepys Collection, there are a few Scottish 
songs of the last century, but the names of the authors 
are not preserved. 

t Extract of a letter from Mr. Ramsay of Ochtertyre 
to the Editor, Sept. 11, 1799.— In the Bee, vol. ii. is » 
communication to Mr. Ramsay, under the signature of 
J. Runcole, which enters into this subject somewhat 
more at large. In that paper he gives his reasons for 
questioning the antiquity of many of the most celebrsv 
ted Scottish songs. 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



49 



JjSUkt described by Mr.' Ram3ay, took place among verses worthy of the melodies they accompanied 



.M Scottisn peasantry immediately 
crowm. or indeed during the greater part of tlie seven- 
teeDth century. The Scottish nation, through nil its 
ranks, was de'eply agitated by the civil wais, and the 
religious persecutions which succeeded each other in 
that (iisasterous period ; it was not till alter the revo- 
lution in 1688, and the subsequent establishment of 
their beloved form of church government, iliul the 
peasantry of the Lowlands enjoyed comparative re- 
pose ; and it is since that period, lhat a great number 
of the most admired Scottish songs have been produc- 
ed, though the tunes to which they are sung, are in 
genera, of much greater antiquity. It is not unrea- 
sonable to suppose lhat the pe;ice and security derived 
from the Revolution and the Union, produced a favour- 
able change on the rustic poetry of Scotland j and it 
can scarcely be doubled, tliatthe institution of parish- 
schools in 1696, by which a certain decree of instruc- 
tion was diffused universally among ..he peasantry, 
contributed to this happy effect 

Soon after this appeared Allan Ramsixy, the Scot- 
tish Theocritus. He was horn on the high mountains 
that divide Clydesdale and Auuandale, in a small 
hamlet on the banks of lilaugonar, a stream which 
descends into the Clyde. The rums of this hamlet are 
still shown to the inquiring traveller.* lie was the 
Son of a peasant, and probably received such instruc- 
tion as bis parish school bestowed, and the poverty of 
his parents admitted. f Ramsay made his appearance 
in Edinburgh in the beginning of the present century, 
in the humble character of an apprentice to a barber, 
or peruke maker ; he was then fourteen or fifteen 
years of age. By degrees he acquired notice for his 
soc.ai disposition, ami his talent for the composition ol 
verses in his Scottish idiom; and, changing ins pro- 
fession for that of a bookseller, be became intimate 
with many of the literary, as well as of the gay and 
fashionable characters of his tune 4 Having published 
avoiurr.eof poems of his own in 1721, which was fa- 
vourably received, be undertook to make a collection 
of ancient Scottish poems, under the title of the Ever- 
Green, and was afterwards encouraged to present to 
the world a collection ol Scottish songs. " Prom what 
source* ie procured them," says Mr. Ramsay of Och- 
lertyre, "whether whom tradition or manuscripts, is 
uncertain. As in the Ever-Green he made some rash 
attempts to improve on the originals of his ancient 
poems, he probably used still greater freedom with the 
sot.gs and ballads. The truth cannot, however, be 
known on this point, till manuscripts of the songs print- 
ed by him, more ancient than the present iceutury, 
shall be produced ; or access be obtained to bis own 
papers, if they are still in existence. To several tunes 
which either wanted words, or had words that were 
improper or imperfect, he, or his friends, adapted 

* See Campbell's History of Poetry in Scotland, p. 



t The father of Ramsay was, It is said, a work- 
man in the lead-mines of the Karl of Hopeton, at 
Lead hills. The workmen in those mines at present 
are of a very superior character to miners in general. 
They have only six hours of labour in the day, and 
have time for reading. They have a common library, 
supported by contribution, containing several thou- 
sand volumes. When this was instituted I have not 
learned. These miners are said to be of a very sober 
and moral character ; Allan Ramsay, when very young 
is supposed to have been a washer of ore in these 



J " Fie was coeval wi'.h Joseph Mitchell, and his cluh 
of small wits, who a 1 out 1719, published a very poor 
miscellany, to which Dr. Young, the author of the 
Night Thought* prefixed a copy of verses." Ex- 
tract of a letter from Mr. Ramsay of Ochtertyte to the 
Editor. 



thy indeed of the golden age. These verses were J 
lectly intelligible to every rustic, yet justly admired by 
persona ol taste, who regarded them as the genuine 
offspring ol the pastoral muse. In some respects Ram- 
say had advantages not possessed by poets writing ia 
the Scottish dialect in our days. Songs in the dialect 
ol Cumberland or Lancashire could never be popular, 
because these dialects have never been spoken by per 
sons ot fashion. But till the middle of the present cen 
tury, every Scotsman from the peer lo the peasant, 
spoke a truly Doric language. It is true the English 
moralists and poets were by this time read by every 
person of condition, and considered as the standards 
lor polite composition. But, as national prejudices 
were still strung, the busy, the learned, the gay, and 
the fair, continued to speak their native dialect, and 
that witli an elegance and poignancy, of which Scots- 
men of the present day can have no just notion. I am 
old enough to have conversed with Mr. Spittal, of 
Leuchat, a scholar and a man of fashion, who sur- 
vived all ibe members of the Union Parliament, hi 
winch he bad a seat. His pronunciation and phrase- 
ology differed as much from the common dialect, a» 
the language of St. James's from that of Thames- 
sti\ei. Had we retained a court and parliament of 
our own, the tongues of the two sister-kingdoms 
would indeed have differed like the Castilian and 
I orluguese ; but each would have had itsown classics, 
not in a single branch, but in the whole circle of litera- 
ture. 



" Ramsay asso< 
ion of his day, am 
poetry in his main 
ted to think of con 
erlion, succeeded ' 
nets to favourite 



iated with the men of wit and fash- 
several ol them attempted to write 
er. Persons too idle or too dissipa- 
poeitions that required much exer- 
ery happily in making lender son- 
uues in compliment of their mis 



tresses, land, transforming themselves into impas- 
sioned shepherds, caught the language of the charac 
ters they assumed. Thus, about the year 1731, Ro- 
bert Crawford of Auchiuames, wrote the modern sont 
of Tie ed Side,' which has been so much admired. \tt 
17-13, Sir Gilbert Elliot, the tirsl of our lawyers who 
both spoke and wrote English elegantly, composed, ir 
the character of a love-sick swain, a beautiful song 
beginning, My sheep I neglectid, I lost my sheep 
hook, on the marriage of his mistress, Miss ForbeB 
with Ronald Crawford. And about twelve years af 
terwards, the sister of Sir Gilbert wrote the ancien- 
words to the tune of the Flowers of the Forest,] and 
supposed to allude to the battle of Flowden. In spite 
of the double rhyme, it is a sweet, and though in some 
parts allegorical, a natural expression of national sor- 
row. The more modern words to the same tune, be- 
ginning, I hive sen the smiling of fortune beguiling, 
were written long before by Mrs. Cockburn, a woman 
of great wit, who outlived all the first group of literati 
of the present century, all of whom were very fond cf 
her. 1 was delighted with her company, though, when 
1 saw her, she was very old. Much did she know that 
is now lost." 

Inadditiontothe.se instances of Scottish songs pro- 
duced in the earlier part of the present century, may 
be mentioned the ballad of Hirdikm <(</, by Lady Ward- 
law ; the ballad of William and Margaret ; and the 
song entitled The Birks of End rmn.y , by Mallet ; the 
love song, beginning, For ever, Fortune, wilt thou 
prove, produced by the youthful muse of Thomson; 
and the exquisite pathetic ballad, 77ie Braes of Yar- 
row, by Hamilton of Uaugour. On the revival of let- 
ters in Scotland, subsequent to the Union, a very gen- 
eral taste seems to have prevailed for the national 
songs and music. " For many years," says Mr. Ram- 
say, " the singing of songs was the great delight of the 
higher and middle order of the people, as well as of 
the peasantry ; and though a taste for Italian music 
has interfered with this amusement, it is still very pra- 



What beauties does Floradisclose !" 
; ' I have heard a lilting at our ewe«- 



* Beginning, ' 

t Beginning 
milking." 



50 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



ralent. Between forty and fifty years ago, the com- 
mon people were not only exceedingly fond of songs 
and ballads, but of metrical history. Often have I, 
in my cheerful morn of youth, listened to them with 
delight, when readiug or reciting the exploits of Wal- 
lace and Bruce against the Southrons. Lord Hades 
was wont to call blind' Harry their Bible, he being 
their great favourite next the Scriptures. When, there- 
fore, one in the vale of life, felt the first emotions of ge- 
nius, he wanted not models sui generis. But though 
the seeds of poetry were scattered with a plentiful 
hand among the Scottish peasantry, the product was 
probably like that of pears and apples— of a thousand 
that spring up, nine hundred and fifty are so- bad as to 
set the teeth on edge ; forty-five or more are passable 
and useful ; and the rest of an exquisite flavour. Allan 
Ramsay and Burns are wildings of this last descrip- 
tion. They had the example of the elder Scottish po- 
ets ; they were not without the aid of the best English 
writers ; and what was of still mare importance, they 
were no strangers to the book of nature, and the book of 
God." 

Prom this general view, it is apparent that Allan 
Ramsay may be considered as in a great measure the 
reviewer of the rural poetry of his country. His col- 
lection of ancient Scottish poems, under the name of 
TUe Ever-Green, his collection of Scottish songs, and 
his own poems, the principal of which is the Gentle 

Shepherd, have been universally read an g the 

peasantry of his country, and have in some degree su- 
perseded the adventures of Bruce and Wallace, as re- 
corded by Barbour and Blind Hairy. Burns was well 
acquainted with all these. He had also before him the 
poems of Fergusson in the Scottish dialect, which have 
been produced in our own times, and of which it will 
be necessary to give a short account. 

x Fergusson was born of parents who had it in their 
power to procure him a liberal education, a circum- 
stance, however, which in Scotland implies no very 
high rank in society. Prom a well written and appa- 
rently authentic account of his life,* we learn that he 
spent six years at the schools of Edinburgh and Dun- 
dee, and several years at the universities of Edinburgh 
and St. Andrews. It appears that he was at one 
time destined for the Scottish church ; but as he ad- 
vanced towards manhood, he renounced that inten- 
tion, and at Edinburgh entered t lie office of a writer to 
the signet, a title wtiich designates a separate and 
higher order of Scottish attorneys. Fergusson had 
sensibility of mind, a warm and generous heart, and 
talents for society of the most attractive kind. To 
such a man no situation could be more dangerous than 
that in which hi: was placed. The excesses into which 
he was led, impaired his feeble constitution, and he 
sunk under them in the month of October, 1771, in his 
23d or '24th year. Burns was not acquainted with the 
poems of this youthful genius when he himself began 
to write poetry ; and when he first saw them he had 
renounced the muses. But while he resided in the 
town of Irvine, meeting with Fergu8Son''e Scottish 
Poems, he informs us that he "strung his lyre anew 
with emulating vigour."]- Touched by the sympathy 
originating in kindred genius, and in the forebodings 
of similar fortune, Burns regarded Fergusson with a 
partial and an affectionate admiration. Over his 
grave he erected a monument, as has already been 
mentioned ; ami his poems he has, in several instan- 
ces, made the subjects of his imitation. 

From this account of the Scottish poems known to 
Burns, those who are acquainted with them will see 
that they are chiefly humorous or pathetic ; and under 
one or other of these descriptions most of his own 
poems will class. Let us compare him with his pre- 
decessors under each of these points of view, and close 
our examination with a few general observations. 

•In the supplement to the " Encyclopedia Britan- 
nica." See also, "Campbell's Introduction to the 
History of" Poetry in Scotland." 



It has frequently been observed, thai Scotland ha* 
produced, comparatively speaking, few writers who 
have excelled in humour. But this observation hi 
true only when applied to those who have continued 
to reside in their own country, and have confined them- 
selves to composition in pure English ; and in these 
circumstances it admits of an easy explanation. The 
Scottish poets, who have written in the dialect of 
Scotland, have been at all times remarkable for dwel- 
ling on subjects of humour, in which indeed many of 
them have excelled. It would be easy to show, that 
the dialect of Scotland having become provincial, is 
noiv scarcely suited to ihe more elevated kinds of (>o- 
etry. If we may believe that the poem of Christis 
Kirk of the Grene was written by James the First of 
Scotland/ this accomplished monarch who had re- 
ceived an English education uivder the direction of 
Henry the Fourth, and who bore arms under his gal- 
lant successor, gave the model on which the greater 
part of the humorous productions of the rustic muse 
of Scotland has been formed. Christis Kirk of tlte 
Grene was reprinted by Ramsay, somewhat modern- 
ized in the orthography, and two cantos were added 
by him, in which he attempts to carry on the design. 
Hence the poem of King James is usually printed in 
Ramsay's works. The royal bard describes, in the 
first canto, a rustic dance, and afterwards a conten- 
tion in archery, ending in an affray. Ramsay relate* 
the restoration of concord, and the renewal of the ru- 
ral sports, with the humours of a country wedding. 
Though each of the poets describes the manners of 
hi.-; respective age, yet in the whole piece there is a 
very sufficient uniformity ; a striking proof of the 
identity of character in the Scottish peasantry at the 
two periods, distant from each other three hundred 
years. It is an honourable distinction to tins body of 
men, that their character and manners, very little 
embellished, have been found to be susceptible of an 
arousing and interesting species of poetry ; and it must 
appear not a lillle curious, that the single nation of 
modern Europe, which possesses an original rural 
poetry, should have received the model, followed by 
their rustic bards, from the monarch on the throne. 

The two additional caotoea to Christis Kirk of the 
Grene, written by Eli unsay, though objectionable in 
point of delicacy, are among the happiest of his pro- 
ductions, liis chief excellence, indeed, lay in the de 
scription of rural characters, incidents, and scenery ; 
for he did not possess any very high powers either of 
imagination or of understanding. He was well ae- 

qi ted with the peasantry of Scotland, their lives 

and opinions. The subject was in a great measure 
new; his talents were equal to the subject; and he 
has shown that it may be happily adapted to pastoral 
poetry. In his GcrUlt Shepherd the characters are 
delineations from nature, the descriptive parts are in 
Ihe genuine style of beautiful simplicity, the passions 
and affections of rural life are finely portrayed, and 
the heart is pleasingly interested in the happiness that 
is bestoweil on innocence and virtue. Throughout 
the whole there is an air of reality which the most 
careless reader cannot but perceive ; and in fact no 
poem ever pei haps acquired so high a reputation, in 
which truth received so little embellishment from the 
imagination. In his pastoral songs, and in his rural 
tales, Ramsay appears to less advantage indeed, but 
still with considerable attraction. The story of the 
Monk and the Miller's Wife, though somewhat li- 
centious, may rank with the happiest productions of 
Trior or La Fontaine. But when he attempts sub- 
jects from higher life, and aims at pure English com- 
position, he is feeble and uninteresting, and seldom 

'Notwithstanding the evidence produced on this 
subject by Mr. Tytler, the Editor acknowledges his 
being somewhat of a sceptic on this point. Sir Davkl 
Dalrymple inclines to the opinion that it was written 
by his successor, James the Fifth. There are diffi 
culties attending this supposition also. But on tho 
subject of Scottish antiquities, the Editor u an incom- 
petent judge. 






THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



5J 



Neither are his familiar 
.cuttish dialect .'milled to 
i Pergtisson had higher 

Ramsay, his genius was 
r did his learning, which 



tvm reaches mediocrity.* 
epistles and elegies in the 

much appicbot Th. hi; 

powers of imagination thai 
not of the highest order ; n 

was considerable, improve his genius. His poems 
written in pure English, in which he. often follows 
classical models, though superior to the English 
poems of Ramsay, seldom rise above mediociily ; but 
in those composed in the Scottish dialect he is often 
very successful. tie was i.i general, however, less 
happy than Ramsay in the subjects of his muse. As 
he spent ihegreater part of his life in Edinburgh, and 
wrote for his amusement in the intervals of business or 
>n, Ins Scottish poems are chiefly founded on 
the incidents of a town hie, which, though they are 
susceptible of humour, do not admit of those delinea- 
tions of scenery and manners, which vivify the rural 
poetry of Ramsay, ami which so agreeably amuse the 
fancy and interest the heart. The town eclogues of 
Furgusson, if we may so denominate them, are how- 
ever faithful to nature, and often distinguished by 
very happy vein of humour. His poems entitled, The 
Daft Days, The King's Birthday in Edinburgh, 
Lcith Races, and The Hallow Fair, will justify this 
character'. In these, particularly in the last, he imi- 
tated Christis Kirk of the Or, ne, as Ramsav had done 
before him. His Address to the Tronkirk 'Bell is an 
exquisite piece o\ humour, which Burns has scarcely 
excelled. In appreciating the genius of Fergusson, 
it ought to be recullected, that his poems are the care- 
less effusions of an irregular, though amiable young 
man, who wrote for the periodical papers of the day, 
and who died in early youth. Had his life been pro- 
longed under happier circumstances, of fortune, he 
would probably have risen to much higher reputation. 
He might have excelled in rural poetry ; for though his 
professed pastorals on the established Sicilian model, 
are stale and uninteresting, The Farmer's IngU,\ 
Which may be considered as a Scottish pastoral, is 
the happiest of all his productions, and certainly was 
the archetype of the Cotter's Saturday Night. Per- 
jusson, and more especially Burns, have shown that 
the character ami manners of the peasantry of Scot- 
land of the present times, are as well adapted to 
poetry, as rn the days of Ramsay, or of the author of 
C/irislis Kirk of the Grene. 

The humour of Burns is of a richer vein than that of 
Ramsay or Pergtisson, both of whom, as he himself 
informs us, he had "frequently in his eye, but rather 
with a view to kindle at their flame, than to servile 
imitation. "J His descriptive powers, whether the 
objects on which they are employed be comic or seri- 
ous, animate or inanimate, are of the highest order. 
A superiority of this kind is essential to every species 
of poetical excellence. In one of his earlier poems, 
his plan seems to be to inculcate a lesson of content- 
ment in the lower classes of society, by showing that 
their superiors are neither much better nor happier 
than themselves ; and this he chooses to execute in a 
form of a dialogue between two doge. He introduces 
this dialogue by an account of the persons and charac- 
ters of the speakers. The first, whom he has named 
Ccesor, is a dog of condition : 

" His locked, letfer'd, braw brass cotlar, 
Show'd him the gentleman and scholar." 



" At kirk or market, mill or smiddie, 

Nae tawtcd tyke, tho, e'er saeduddie, 

But he wad stawn't, as glad to see him, 

And stroon't on stanes an' hillocks wi' him." 

The other, Luath, is a " ploughman's collie, but a cur 
©fa good heart and a sound understanding. 

♦See "The Morning Interview," &c. 
iThe farmer's fire-side. J See Appendix. 



" His honest, sonsie, baws'nt face, 
Ay gat him friends in ilka place ; 
His breast was white, histowsie back 
Weel clad wi' coat o' glossy 'lack. 
His gawcie tail, wi' xspward curl, 
Hung o'er his hurdles -wi' a swurl." 

Never were two. dogs so exquisitely delineated. 
Their gambols before they sit down to moralize, are 
described with an equal degree of happiness ; and 
through the whole dialogue, the character, as well as 
the different condition of the two speakers, is kept in 
view. The speech of Luath, in which he enumerates 
the comforts oi the poor, gives the following account of 
their merriment on the 61 si day of the year : 

" That merry day the year begins, 
They bar the door on frosty winds ; 
The nappy reeks wi' mantling ream, 
And sheds a heart-inspiring steam ; 
The luntin pipe; and sueeshin mill, 
Are handed round wi' richt guid will 
The cantie auld folks crackln crousc, 
The young anes rantio thro' the house, 
My heai t has been sae fain to see them, 
That I fo rjoy hae barkit wi' them." 

Of all the animals who have moralized on human af- 
fairs since the days ol /Esop, the dog seems best enti- 
tled to this privilege, as well from his superior sagacti- 
ty, as from his being .more than any other, the friend 
and associate of man. The does of Burns, excepting 
in their talent for moralizing, are downright dogs ; and 
not like the horses of Swift, or the Hind and Panther 
of I irvden, men in the shape of brutes. It is this cir- Aj. 
cumstance mat heightens the humour of the dialogue. 
The " twa dogs" are constantly kept before our eyes, 
and the contrast between their form and character as 
dogs, and the sagacity of their conversation, heightens 
the humour and deepens the impression of the poets 
satire. Though in his poem the chief excellence may 
be considered as humour, yet great talents are dis- 
played in its composition ; the happiest powers of des- 
cription and the deepest insight into the human heart.* 
It is seldom, however, that the humour of Burns ap- 
pears in so simple a form. The liveliness of his sensibili- 
ty frequently impels him to introduce into subjects of 
humour, emotions of tenderness or of pity ; and where 
occasion admits, he is sometimes carried on to exert 
the higher powers of the imagination. In such instan- 
ces he leaves the society of Ramsay and of Fergus- 
son, and associates himself with the masters of Eng- 
lish poetry, whose language he frequently assumes. 

Of the union of tenderness and humour, examples 
may be found in The Death and Dying Words of 
poor Mailie, in The Auld Farmers New-Year's 
Morning Salutation to his Mare Maggie, and in 
many of his other poems. The praise of whiskey is 
a favourite subject with Burns. To this he dedi- 
cates his poem of Scotch-Drink. After mentioning its 

* When this poem first appeared, it was thought by 
some very surprising that a peasant, who had not an 
opportunity of associating even with a simple gentle- 
man, should have been able to portray the character of 
high life with such accuracy. And when it was recol- 
lected that he had probably been at the races of Ayr, 
where nobility as well as gentry are to be seen, it was 
concluded that the race-ground had been the field of 
liis observation. This was sagacious enough ; but it 
did not require such instruction to inform Burns, that 
human nature is essentially the same in \he high and 
the low ; and a genius which comprehends the human 
mind, easily comprehends the accidental varieties in-" 
truduced by situation. 



52 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



(rheering influence in a variety of situations, he de- 
scribes, with singular liveliness and power of fancy, its 
t 'jmulating effects on the blacksmith working ai his 
orge : 

" Nae mercy, then, for aim or steel ; 
The brawnie, bainie, ploughman ehiel, 
Brings hard owrehip, wi' sturdy wlieel, 

The strong fore hammer, 
Till block an' studdie ring an' reel 

Wi' dinsome clamour." 

On another occasion,* choosing to exalt whiskey 
above wine, he introduces a comparison between the 
natives of more genial climes, to whom the vine fur- 
nishes their beverage, and Ins own countrymen who 
irink the spirit of malt. The description ol the Scots- 
men is humourous : 

" But bring a Scotsman frae his hill, 
Clap to his cheek a' Highland gill, 
Say such is Royal George's will, 

An' there's the foe, 
He has nae thought but how to kill 

Twa at a blow." 



Here the notion of dang 
'.he poet. He goes on thus 



: the imagination of 



" Nae canld, faint-hearted doublings tease him ; 
Death comes, wi' fearless eye he sees him ; 
Wi' bluidy hand a welcome gies him 

An' when he fa's, 
His latest draught o' breathing lea'es him 

In faint huzzas." 

Again, however, he sinks into humour, and concludes 
the poem with the following most laughable, but most 
.rrevereut apostrophe : 

" Scotland, my auld respected Mither ! 
Tho' whiles ye moistify your leather, 
Till where ye sit, on craps o' heather, 

Ye tine your Jam : 
Freedom and whiskty gang thegither, 

Tak off your dram I" 

Of this union of humour with the higher powers of 
imagination, instances may be found in the poem enti- 
tled Death and Dr. Hornbook, and in almusl every 
stanza of the Address to the Deit, one of the happiest 
of his productions. Alter reproaching tins terrible 
being with all his "doings" and misdeeds, in the 
course of which he passes through a series of Scottish 
superstitions, and rises at limes into a high strain of 
poetry ; he concludes this address, delivered in a lone 
of great familiarity, nob altogether unmixed with ap- 
prehension, in the following words : 

" But, fare ye weel, auld Nickie ben 1 

O wad you tak a thought an' men' I 

Ye aiblins might — I dinna ken- 
Still hae a stake — 

I'm wae to think upo' yon den 

E'en for your sake ?" 

Humour and tenderness are here so happily in- 
termixed, that it is impossible to say which prepon- 
derates. 

Rurgusson wrote a dialogue between the Causeway 
and the Plainstones,t of Edinburgh. This probably 

* " The Author's Earnest Cry and Prayer to the 
Scotch Representatives in Parliament." 

t The middle of the street, and the side-way. 



suggested to Burns his dialogue between the Old *B4 
the New bridge over (he river Ayr.* The nature ol 
such subjects requires that they shall be treated hu- 
mourously, and Furguasou has attempted nothing be- 
yond this. Though the Ctiusfioay and the Plainstonta 
talk together, no attempt is made to personify the 
speakers. A " cadie"f heard the conversation and re- 
ported it to the poet. 



I'i the dialogue between the Brigs of Ayr, Burns 
himself is the auditor, and the time and occasion on 
winch it occurred is related with great circumstantiali- 
ty. The poet, "pressed by care," or "inspired by 
whim," had left Ins bed in the town of Ayr, and wan- 
dered out alun-e in the darkness and solitude of a win- 
lei night, tu the mouth ol the river, where the stillness 
was intei rupled only by the rushing sound of the influx 
of the tide.' It was after midnight. The Oungeon- 
clockj had struck two, and the sound had been re- 
peated by Wallace-Tower.} All else was hushed. — 
The inoou shone brightly, and 

" The chilly frost, beneath the silver beam, 

Crept, gently crusting, o'er the glittering stream." — 

In this situation the listening hard hears the "clang- 
ing sugh" of wings moving through the air, and speed- 
ily he perceives two beings, reared the one on the Old, 
the other on the New Bridge, whose form and attire 
he describes, and whose conversation with each other 
he rehearses. These genii enter into a comparison of 
the respective edifices over which they preside, and af- 
terwards, as is usual between the old and young, com- 
pare modern characters and manners with those of 
past times. They ditfer, as may be expected, and 
taunt and scold each other in Broad Scotch. This 
conversation, which is certainly humourous, may be 
considered as the proper business of the poem. As 
the debate runs high, and threatens serious consequen- 
ces, all at once it io interrupted by a new sceue of 
wonders : 



-all before their sight 



A fairy train appeared in order bright ; 

Adown the glittering stream they featly dane'd ; 

Bright to the moon their various dresses glanc'd ; 

They footed o'er the watry glas3 so neat, 

The infant ice scarce bent beneath their feet ; 

While arts of Minstrelsy among them rung, 

And soul-ennobling Bards heroic ditties sung." 



" The Genius of the Stream in front appearB— 
A venerable chief, advane'd in years ; 
His hoary head with water-lilies crown'd, 
His manly leg with garter-tangle bound." 

Next follow a number of other allegorical beings, 
among them are the four seasons, Rural Joy, Plenty, 
Hospitality, and Courage. 

" Benevolence, with mild benignant air, 
A female form, came from the tow'rs of Stair ; 
Learning and Wealth in equal measures trode, 
From simple Catrine, their long- lov'd abode ; 
Last, white-robed Peace, crown'd with a hazel- 
wreath, 
Torustic Agriculture did bequeath 
The broken iron instrument of Death ; 
At sight of whom our sprites forgat their kindling 
wrath." 

* The Brigs of Ayr. + A messenger. 

X The two steeples of Ayr. 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



53 



This poem, irregular and imperfect as it is, displays 
various and powerful talents, and may serve to illus- 
trate the genius of Burns. In particular, it affords a 
striking instance of Ids being carried beyond his origi- 
nal purpose by the powers of imagination. 

In Fergusson's poems, the Plainstones and Cause- 
way contrast the characters of the different persons 
who walked upon them. Burns probably conceived, 
that, by a dialogue between the Old and New Bridge, 
he might form a humorous contrast between ancient 
and modern manueisin the town of Ayr. Such a dia- 
logue could only be supposed to pass in the stillness of 
night; and this led our poet into a description of a 
midnight scene, which excited ill a high degree the 
powers of his imagination. During the whole dialogue 
the scenery is present to his fancy, and at length it 
suggests to him a fairy dance of aerial beings, under 
the beams of the moon, by which the wrath of the Genii 
of the Brigs of Ayr is appeased. 

Incongruous as the different parts of this poem are, 
it is not at) incongruity that displeases ; and we have 
only to regret that the poet did not bestow a little pains 
in making the figures more correct, and in smoothing 
tiie versification. 

The epistles of Burns, in which may be included his 
Dedication to G. H. Esq. discover, like his other 
writings, the powers of a superior understanding. 
They display deep insight into human nature, a gay 
and happy strain of reflection, great independence of 
sentiment, and generosity of heart. It is to be regret- 
ted, that, in his Holy Fair, and in some of his other 
poems, his humour degenerates into personal satire, 
and that it is not sufficiently guarded in other respects. 
The Halloween of Burns is free from every objection 
of this sort. It is interesting, not merely from its hu- 
morous description of manners, but as it records the 
i-pells and charms used on the celebration of a festi- 
val, now, even in Scotland, falling into neglect, hut 
which was once observed over the greater part of Bri- 
tain and Ireland.* These charms are supposed to af- 
ford an insight into futurity, especially on the subject 
of marriage, the most interesting event cf rural life. 
In the Halloween, a female in performing one of the 
spells, has occasion to go out by moonlight to dip her 
shift-sleeve into a stream running towards the Soutk.f 
It was not necessary for Burns to give a description of 
this stream. But it was the character of bis ardent 
mind to pour forth not merely what the occasion re 
quired, but what it admitted ; and the temptation to 
describe so beautiful a natural object by moonlight, 
was not to be resisted. 

" Whyles owre a linn the buniie plays 

As thro' the glen itwimpl't ; 
Whyles round a rocky scar it stays ; 

Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't ; 
Whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays, 

Wi' bickering, dancing dazzle ; 
Whyles cookit underneath the braes, 

Below the spreading hazel, 

Unseen that night." 

Those who understand the Scottish dialect will al 
low this to be one of the finest instances of description 
which the records of poetry afford. Though of a veiy 
different nature, it may be compared in point of ex- 
cellence with Thompson's description of a river 
swollen by the rains of winter, bursting through the 
straights that confine its torrent, " boiling, wheeling, 
foaming, and thundering along. "J 

In pastoral, or, to speak more correctly in rural 
poetry of a serious nature, Burns excelled equally as 

* In Ireland it is still celebrated. It is not quite 
in disuse in Wales. 
tSee " Halloween," Stanzas xxiv. and xxv. 
J See Thompson's Winter. 



in that of a humorous kind ; and, using less of the 
Scottish dialect in his serious poems, he becomes more 
generally intelligible. It is difficult to decide whether 
the Addrtse to a Mouse, whose nest was turned up 
with the plough, should be considered as serious or 
comic. Be this as it may, the poem is one cf the hap- 
piest and most finished of his productions. If we 
smile at the " Dickering battle" of this (lying animal, 
it is a smile of tenderness and pity. The descriptive 
part is admirable ; the moral rellcctions beautiful, 
and arising directly out of the occasion ; and in the 
conclusion there is a deep melancholy, a sentiment of 
doubt and dread, that rises to the sublime. The Ad- 
dress to a Mountain Daisy, turned down with the 
plough, is a poem of the same nature, though some- 
what inferior in point of originality, as well as in the 
interest produced. To exuact out of incidents 60 
common, and seemingly en trivial as these, so line a 
train of sentiment and imagery, is the surest proof, as 
well as the most brilliant triumph of original genius. 
7'he Vision, in two can toes, from which a beautiful 
extract is taken by Mr. Mackenzie, in the 97th num- 
ber of The Lounger, is a poem of great excellence. — 
The opening, in which the poet describes his own state 
of mind, retiring in the evening, wearied from the la- 
bours of the day, to moralize on his conduct and pios- 
pecls, is truly interesting. The chamber, if we may 
so term it, in which he sits down to muse, is an ex- 
quisite painting : 

" There, lanely, by the ingle-cheek 
I sat and ey'd the spewing reek, 
That fiil'd, wi' boast-provoking smeek, 

The auld clay biggin j 
An' heard the restless rattons squeak 

About theriggin." 

To reconcile to our imagination the entrance of an 
aerial being into a mansion of this kind, required the 
powers of Burns— he however succeeds. Coila enters, 
and her countenance, attitude, and dress, unlike those 
of other spiritual beings, are distinctly portrayed. To 
the painting, on her mantle, on which is depict- 
ed the most striking scenery, as well as the most 
distinguished characters, of his native country, some 
exceptions may be made. The mantle of Coila, 
like the cup of Thyrsis," and the shield of Achilles, is 
too much crowded with figures, and some of the ob- 
jects represented upon it are scarcely admissible, ac- 
cording to the principles of design. The generous 
temperament of Barn's led him into these exuberances. 
In. his second edition he enlaiged the number of fig- 
ures originally introduced, that he might include ob- 
jects to which he was attached by sentiments of affec- 
tion, gratitude, or patriotism. The second Duan, or 
canto of this poem, in which Coila describes her own 
nature and occupation, particularly her superintend- 
ence of bis infant genius, and in which she reconciles 
him to the character of a hard, is an elegant and so- 
lemr. strain of poetry, ranking in all respects, except- 
ing the harmony of numbers, with the higher produc- 
tions of the English muse. The concluding stanza, 
compared with that already quoted, will show to what 
height Burns rises in this poem, from the point at which 
he set out : — 

" And wear thou this— she solemn said, 
And, bound the Holly round my head : 
The polish'd leaves, and berries red, 

Did rustling play ; 
And, like a passing thought, she fled 

In light a way," 

In various poems, Burns has exhibited the pictur 
of a mind under the deep impression of real sorrow. 
The Lament, The Ode to Rain, Despondency, and 
Win'er, a Dirge, are of this character. In the first 
of these poems, the 8th stanza, which describes a 
sleepless night from anguish of mind, is particularly 
striking. Burns often indulged in those melancholy 

* See the first Idyllium of Theocritui. 



54 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



riewa of the nature and condition of man, which 
are so congenial to the temperament of sensibility. — 
The poem entitled Man was m de to Mown, affords 
an instance of this kind, and The Winter Night is of 
the same description. The last is highly characteris- 
tic, both of the temper of mind, and of the condition of 
Cuius. It begins with a description of a dreadful 
storm on a night in winter. The poet represents h:m- 
*elf as laying in bed, and listening to its howling. In 
tliis situation he naturally turns his thoughts to the 
otvrie Cattle and the silly Sheep, exposed to all the 
violence of the tempest. Having lamented their fate, 
lie proceeds in the following manner; 

" Ilk happing bird — wee, helpless thing I 
That, in the merry months o' spring, 
Delighted me to hear thee sing, 

What comes o' thee ? 
Where wilt thou cow'r thy chittering wing, 

An' close thy e'e ?" 

Other reflections of the same nature occur to his 
mind ; and as the midnight moon "muffled with 
clouds" casts htr dreary light on his window, thoughts 
of a darker and more melancholy nature crowd upon 
him. In this state of mind, he hears a voice pouring 
through the gloom a solemn and plaintive strain of re- 
flection. The mourner compares the fury of the ele- 
ments with that of man to his brother man, and finds 
Hie former light in the balance. 

" See stern oppression's iron grip, 

Or mad ambition's gory hand, 
Sending, like blood hounds from the slip, 

Wo, want, and murder, o'er a land !" 

He pursues this train of reflection through a variety 
ef particulars, in the course ol which he introduces the 
following animated apostrophe : 

" Oh ye ! who, sunk in beds of down, 

Feel not a want but what yourselves create, 

Think, for a moment, on his wretched late, 
Whom friends and fortune quite disown ! 

Ill-satisfy'd keen Nature's clatn'rous call, 

Stretch'd on his straw he lays himself to sleep, 

While thro' the ragged roof and clunky wall, 
Chill o'er his slumbers piles the drift y heap I" 

The strain of sentiment which runs through the 
poem is noble, though the execution u unequal, and 
tne versificatiou is defective. 

Among the serious poems of Burns, The Cotter , s 
Saturday Night is perhaps entitled to the first rank. 
The Farmer's Ingle of Fergusson evidently suggested 
the plan of this poem, as has been already mentioned ; 
but after the plan was formed, Burns trusted entirely 
to his own powers for the execution. Fergusson 's 
poem is certainly very beautiful. It has all the charms 
which depend on ruial characters and manners hap- 
pily portrayed, and exhibited under circumstances 
highly grateful to the imagination. The Fanner's In- 
gle begins with describing the return of evening. The 
toils of the day are over, and the farmer retires to his 
comfortable fire-side. The reception which he and his 
men servants receive from the careful housewife, is 
piea3ingly described. After their supper is over, they 
begin to talk on the rural events of the day. 

" Bout kirk and market eke their tales gae on, 
How Jock wooed Jenny here to be his bride j 

And there how Marion for a bastard son, 
Upo' the cutty-stool was forced to ride, 

The waefu' scauld o' our Mtss John to bide." 

The"Guidame" is next introduced as forming a 
circle round the fire, in the midst of her grand-chil 



dren, and while she spins from the rock, and tne *pto- 

->-"s un her"russe: lap," she is relating to the 

les tales of witches and ghosts. The poet ex- 



dlt plays on hi 

claims 



" O mock na this, my friends ! but rather mourn, 
Ye in life's brawtst spring wi' reason clear, 

Wi' eild our idle fancies a' return, 

And dim our dolefu' days wi' bairnly fear ; 

The mind's aye cradled when the grave is near." 

In the meantime the farmer, wearied with the fa- 
tigues of the clay, stretches himself at length un the 
■Settle, a son of rustic couch, which extends on one 
side ol the lire, and the cat and house-dog leap upon it 
to receive his caresses. Here resting at his ease, he 
gives his directions to his men servants for the suc- 
ceeding day. The housewife follows his example, and 
gives her orders to the maidens. By degrees the oil in 
the cruise begins to fail ; i lie lire runs low ; sleep steals 
on this rustic group; and they move oft' to enjoy their 
peaceful slumbers. The poet concludes by bestowing 
his blessings on the " husbandman and all his tribe." 

This is an original and truly interesting pastoral. 
It possesses every thing required in this species of 
composition. We might have perhaps said every 
thing that it admits, had nut Burns written his Cot 
ter's Saturday Night. 

The cottager returning from his labours, has no 
servants to accompany him, to partake of his fare, or 
to receive his instructions. The circle which he joins, 
is composed of his wife and children only ; and if it 
admits of less variety, it affords an opportunity for 
representing scenes that more strongly interest the af- 
fections. The younger children running to meet him, 
and clambering round his knee ; the elder, returning 
from their weekly labours with the neighbouring far- 
mers, dutifully depositing their little gains with their 
parents, and receiving their father's blessing and in- 
structions ; the incidents of the courtship of Jenny, 
their eldest daughter, " woman grown ;" are circum 
stance' of the most interesting kind, which are most 
happily delineated; and alter their frugal supper, the 



ion of these 



rule 



lingers to i 



1 1 1 i n '2. 



wider circle round their hearth, and uniting in thf- 
worship of God, is a picture the most deeply affecting 
of any which the rural muse has ever presented to the 
view. Burns was admirably adapted to this delinea- 
tion. Like all men of geivus, he was of the tempera- 
ment of devotion, and the powers of memory co-opera- 
ted in this instance with the sensibility of his heart, 
and the fervour of his imagination." The Cotter's 
Saturday Nisht is tender and moral, it is solemn and 
devotional, and rises at length into a strain of gran- 
deur and sublimity, which modern poetry hft3 not sur- 
passed. The noble sentiments of patriotism with 
which it concludes, correspond with the rest of the 
poem, In no age or country have the pastoral muses 
breathed such elevated accents, if the Alessiah of Pope 
be excepted, which is indeed a pastoral in form only. 
It is to he regretted that Burns did not employ his 
genius on other subjects of the same nature, which the 
manners and customs of the Scottish peasantry would 
have amply supplied. Such poetry is not tube esti- 
mated by the degree of pleasure which it bestows; it 
sinks deeply into the heart, and is calculated far be- 
yond any other human means, for giving permanence 
to the scenes and characters it so exquisitely de- 
scribes, f 

Before we conclude, it will he proper to offer a few 
observations on the lyric productions of Burns. His 
compositions of this kind are chiefly sonas, generally 
ill the Scottish dialect, and always after the model of 
the Scottish songs, on the general character and moral 
influence of which, some observations have already 
been offered. .. We may hazard a few more particular 
remarks. 

* The reader will recollect that the Cotter tru 
Burns's father. See p. 18. 
t See Appendix, No. II, NoleD. . 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



55 



Of the historic or heroic ballads of Scotland, it is 
unnecessary to speak. Burns has no where imitated 
Ihein, a circumstance to be regretted, since in llii3 
species of composition, from its admitting the more 
terrible as well as the softer graces of poetry, he was 
eminently qualified to have excelled. The - Scottish 
songs which served as a model to Burns, are almost 
without exception pastoral, or rather rural. Such of 
them as are comic, frequently treat of a rustic court- 
ship or a country wedding ; or they describe the 
differences of opinion which arise i.i married life. 
Burns has imitated this species, and surpassed his 
models. The song, beginning, " Husband, husband, 
cease your strife," may be cited in support of this 
observation." His other comic songs are of equal 
merit. In the rural songs of Scotland, whether hu- 
morous or tender, the sentiments are given to particu- 
lar characters, and very generally, the incidents are 
referred to particular scenery. This last circumstance 
may be considered as the distinguished feature of the 
Scottish songs, and on it a considerable pari, of their 
attraction depends. On all occasions the sentiments, 
of whatever nature, are delivered in the character of 
the person principally interested. If love be described, 
it is not as it is observed, but as it is felt ; and the 
passion is delineated under a particular aspect. 
Neither is it the fiercer impulses of desire that are ex- 
pressed, as in the celebrated ode of Sappho, the model 
of so many modern songs, but those gentler emotions 
of tenderness and affection, which do not entirely ab- 
sorb the lover ; but permit him to associate his emo- 
tions with the charms of external nature, and breathe 
the accents of purity and innocence, as well as of love. 
In these respects the love-songs of Scotland are hon- 
ourably distinguished from the most admired classical 
compositions of the same kind ; and by such associa 
tions, a variety, as well as liveliness, is given to the 
representation of this passion, which are not to be 
found in ti.e poetry of Greece or Rome, or perhaps of 
any other nation. Many of the love-songs of Scotland 
describe scenes of rural courtship ; many may be 
considered as invocations from lovers to their mis- 
tresses. On such occasions a degree of interest and 
reality is given to the sentiments, by the spot des- 
tined to these happy interviews being particularized. 
The lovers perhaps meet at the Bush uboon Traqut.ir, 
or on the Banks of E.irick ; the nymphs are invoked 
to wander among the wilds of Roslin, or the woods of 
Invermay. Nor is the spot merely pointed out ; the 
scenery is often described as well as the characters, so 
as to present a complete picture to the fancy. f Thus 

* The dialogues between husbands and their wives, 
which form the subjects of the Scottish songs, are al- 
most all ludicrous and satirical, and in these contests 
the lady is generally victorious. Prom the collections 
of Mr. Pinkerton, we find that the comic muse of 
Scotland delighted in such representations from very 
early times, in her rude dramatic efforts, as well as in 
her rustic songs. 

1 One or two examples may illustrate this observa- 
tion. A Scottish song, written about a hundred years 
ago, begins thus: 

" On Ettrick banks, on a summer's night, 

At gloaming, when the sheep drove hame, 
1 met my lassie, braw and light, 

Come wading barefoot a' her lane ; 
My heart grew light, I ran, ! flang 

My arms about her lily neck, 
And kiss'd and clasped there fu' lang, 
My words they were na mony feck."* 

The lover, who is a Highlander, goes on to relate 
the language he employed with his Lowland maid to 
win her heart, and to persuade her to fly with him to 
Jje Highland hiils, there to share his fortune. The 



Mon-y feck, not very many. 



the maxim of Horace utpicturapoesis, is faithfully 
observed by these rustic bards, wllo are guided by the 
same impulse of nature and sensibility which influ- 
enced the father of epic poetry, on whose example the 
precept of the Roman poet was perhaps founded. By 
this means the imagination is employed to interest the 
feelings. When we not conceive distinctly we do not 
sympathize deeply in any Inunau affection ; and we 
conceive nothing in the abstract. Abstraction, so use- 
ful in morals, and so essential in science, must be 
abandoned when the heart is to be subdued by the 
powers of poetry or of eloquence. The bards ofarn- 
der condition of society paint individual objects ; and 
hence, among other causes, the easy access they ob- 
tain to ihe heart. Generalization is the vice of poets 
whose learning overpowers then' genius ; of poets of a 
refined and scientific age. 

The dramatic style which prevails so much in the 
Scottish songs, while it contributes greatly to the in- 
terest they excite, also shows lhat they have originated 
among a people in the earlier stages of society. Where 
this form of composition appears in songs of a modern 
date, it indicates that they have been written after the 
ancient model.* 

sentiments are in themselves beautiful. But we feel 
them with double force, while we conceive that they 
were addressed by a lover to his mistress, whom he 
met all alone, on a summer's evening, by the banks of 
a beautiful stream, which some of us have actually 
seen, anil which all of us can paint to our imagination. 
Let us take another example. It is now a nymph 
that speaks. Hear how she expresses herself— 

" How blythe each morn was I to see 

My swain come o'er the bill I 
He skipt the burn, and flew to me, 

I met him withguid will." 

Here is another picture drawn by the pencil of Na- 
ture. We see a shepherdess standing by the side of a 
brook, watching her lover as he descends the opposite 
hill. He bounds lightly along; he approaches nearer 
and nearer ; he leaps the brook, and flies into her 
arras. In the recollection of these circumstances, the 
surrounding scenery becomes endeared to the fair 
mourner, and she buuts into the following exclama- 
tion : 

" O the broom, the boiinie, bonnie broom, 
The broom of the Cowden Knowes ! 

I wish I were with my dear swain, 
With his pipe and my ewes." 

Thus the individual spot of this happy interview is 
pointed out, and the picture is completed. 

* That the dramatic form of writing charactemea 
the productions of an early, or, what amounts to the 
same thing, of a rude stage of society may be i.W.strat- 
ed by a reference to the most ancient compositions 
that we know of, the Hebrew scriptures, and the wri- 
tings of Homer. The form of dialogue is adopted in 
the old Scotlish ballads even in narration, whenever 
ths situations described becomes interesting. Thi« 
sometimes produces a very striking effect, of which an 
instance may be given from the ballad of Edom o' 
Gordon, a composition apparently of the sixteenth 
century. The story of the ballad is shortly this.— 
The castle of Rhodes, in the absence of its lord, 
is attacked by the robber Edom o' Gordon. Th« 
lady stands on her defence, beats off the assai'acifj 



66 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



The Scottish songs are of a very unequal poetical 
merit, and this inequality often extends to the differ- 
ent parts of the same song. Those that are humorous, 
or characteristic of manners, have in general the merit 
of copying nature : those that are serious, are tender, 
and often sweetly interesting, but seldom exhibit high 
powers ofimagination, which indeed do not easily find 
a place in this species of composition. The alliance 
of the words of the Scottish songs with the music, 
has in some instances given the former a popularity, 
which otherwise they would not have obtained. 

The association of the words and the music of these 
songs, with the more beautiful parts of the scenery of 
Scotland, contributes to the same effect, it lias given 
them not merely popularity, but permanence ; it has 
imparted to the works of man some portion of the du- 
rability of the works of nature. If, from our imper- 
fect experience of the past, we may judge with any 
confidence respecting the future, songs of this descrip- 
tion are of all others least likely to die. In the changes 
of language they may no doubt suffer change ; but 
the associated strain of sentiment and of music will 
perhaps survive, while the clear stream sweeps down 
the vale of Yarrow, or the yellow broom waves on 
Cowden-Knowes. 

The first attempts of Burns in song-writing were 
not very successful. His habitual inattention to the 
exactness of rhymes, and to the harmony of number, 
arising probably from the models on which the versifi- 
cation was formed, were faults likely to appear to more 
disadvantage in this species of composition, than in 
any other ; and we may also remark, that the strength 
of his imagination, and the exuberance of his sensibili- 
ty, were with dilficulty restrained within the limits of 
gentleness, delicacy, and tenderness, .which sremi d r> 
be assigned to the love-songs of his nation. Burns was 
better adapted by nature for following, in such compo- 
sitions, the model of the Grecian, than that of the 
Scottish muse. By study and practice he however 
surmounted all these obstacles. In hU earlier songs, 
there is some ruggedness ; but this gradually disap- 
pears in his successive efforts ; and some of his later 
compositions of this kind may be compared, in pol- 
ished delicacy, with the finest songs in our lauguage, 
while in the eloquence of sensibility' they surpass them 
all. 

The songs of Burns, like the models he followed and 
excelled, are often dramatic, and for the greater part 
amatory ; and the beauties of rural nature are every 
where associated with the passions and emotions of 

and wounds Gordon, who, in his rage, orders the 
castle to be set on fire. That his orders are car- 
ried into effect, we learn from the expostulation of the 
lady, who is represented as standing on the battle- 
ments, and remonstrating on this barbarity. She is 
interrupted — 

" O then bespake her little son, 

Sate on his nourice knee ; 
Says, ' mither dear, gi' owre this house, 

For the reek itsmithers me.' 
' I wad gie a' my gowd, my childe, 

Sae wad I a' my fee, 
For ae blast o' the weslin wind, 

To blaw the reek frae thee." ' 

The circumstantiality of the Scottish love-songs, and 
the dramatic form which pievailsso generally in them, 
probably arises from their being the descendants and 
successors of the ancient ballads. In the beautiful 
modern song of Mary of CaslU-Cary, the dramatic 
form has a very happy effect. The same may be said 
of Dotiald and Flora, and Come under my plaidie, bv 
tha same author, Mr. Macuiel. 



the mind. Disdaining to copy the works of others, lie 
has not, like some poets of great name, admitted into 
I113 descriptions exotic imagery. The landscapes he 
has painted, and the objects with which they are em- 
bellished, are, in every single instance, such as are to 
be found in Ins own country. In a mountainous re- 
gion, especially when it is' comparatively rude and 
naked, and the most beautiful scenery will always be 
found in the vallies, and on banks of the wooded 
streams. Such scenery is peculiary interestingat the 
close of a summer-day. As we advance northwards, 
the number of the days of summer, indeed, diminishes ; 
but from ibis cause, as well as from the mildness of the 
temperature, the attraction of the season increases, 
and the summer-night becomes still more beautiful. 
T lie gi eater obliquity of the sun's path on the ecliptic, 
prolongs the grateful seasons of twilight to the mid- 
night hours: and the shades of the evening seem to 
mingle with the morning's dawn. The rural poets of 
Scotland, as may be expected, associate in their songs 
the expressions of passion, with the most beautiful of 
their scenery, in the fairest season of the year, and 
generally in those hours of the evening when the beau- 
ties of nature are most interesting.* 

To all these adventitious circumstances, on which 
so much of the effect of poetry depends, great atten- 
tion is paid by Burns. There is scarcely a single song 
of his, in which parliculai scenery is not described, or 
allusions made to natural objects, remarkable for 
beauty or interest ; and though his descriptions are 
not so lull as are sometimes met with in the older 
Scottish songs, they are in the highest degree appro- 
priate and interesting, instances in proof of this might 
be quoted from the Lea Rig, Highland Mary, The 
Soldier's II tarn, Logan Water: from thai beautiful 
pastoral Bonny Jean, and a great number of others. 
Occasionally the force of his genius carries him beyond 
the usual boundaries of .Scottish song, and the natural 
objects introduced have more of the character of sub- 
limity. An instance of Ibis kind is noticed by .Mr. 
Syme,t and many others might be adduced : 

* A lady, of whose genius the editor entertains high 
admiration (.Mrs. Barbauld,) has fallen into an error 
in this respect. In her prefatory address to the works 
of Collins, speaking of the natural objects that may 
lie employed to give interest to the descriptions of 
passion, she observes, "they present in inexha«3tibl| 
variety, from the Song of Solomon, breathing of cas- 
sia, myrrh, and cinnamon, to the Gentle Shepherd o» 
Ramsay, whose damsels carry their milking-paiU 
through the frosts and snow of their less genial but 
not less pastoral country." The damsels of Ramsay 
do not walk in the midst of frost and snow. Almost 
all the scenes of the Gentle Shepherd are laid in -.he 
open air, amidst beautiful natural objects, and at the 
must genial season of tie year. Ramsay introduces 
all his acts with a prefatory description tc assure us of 
this. The fault of the climate of Britain is not, 
that it dogs not afford us the beauties of summer 
but tiiat the season of such beauties :s compara 
tively short, and even uncertain. There are day* 
and nights, even in the northern division of the is- 
land, which equal, or perhaps surpass, what are to 
be found in the latitude of Sicily, or of Greece.— 
Buchanan, when he wrote his exquisite Orij to May, 
felt the charm as well as the transientness of the«e 
happy days : 

Salve fugacis gloria seculi, 
Salve secunda digna dies nota 
Salve vetusta; vita; imago, 
Et specimen venientis JEvi. 

t See pp. 37, 44, 



THE LIFE OF BURNS. 



57 



' Had I a cave on some wild, distant shore, 
Where the winds howl to the waves' dashing 
roar : 
There would I weep my woes. 
There seek my last repose, 
Till grief my eyes should close 
Ne'er to wake more." 

In one song, the scene of which is laid in a winter- 
night, the " wan moon" is described as " setting be- 
hind the while waves; in another, the "storms" 
are apostrophized, and commanded to " rest in the 
cave of their slumbers," on several occasions the gen- 
ius of Burns loses siuhi entirely ot" his archetypes, and 
rises into a strain of uniform sublimity. Instances of 
this kind appear in Libertie, a Vision ; and id his two 
war-songs, Bruce to his Troops, and the Sons of 
Death, These last are of a description of which we 
have no other in our language. The martial sungs 
of our nation are nol military, but naval. If we 
were to seek a comparison of these songs of Burns 
with others of a similar nature, we must have re- 
course to the poetry of ancient Greece, or of modern 
Gaul. 

Burns has made an important addition to the songs 
of Scotland. In his compositions, the poetry equals 
and sometimes surpasses the music. He has enlarged 
the poetical scenery of his country. Many of her 
rivers and mountains, formerly unknown to the muse, 
are now consecrated by his immortal muse. The 
Doon, the Lugar, the Ayr, the Ntth, anil the Cluden, 
Will in future, like the Yarrow, the Tweed, and the 
Tay, be considered as classic streams, and their bor- 
ders will be trodden with new and superior emotions. 

The greater part of the songs of Burns were written 
after he removed into the county of Dumfries. Influ- 
enced, perhaps, by habits formed in early life, he usu- 
ally composed while walking in the open air. When 
engaged in writing these songs, his favourite walks on 
the banks of the "Kith, or of ihe Cluden, particularly 
near the ruins of Lincluden Abbey ; and this beautiful 
scenery he has very happily described under various 
aspects, as it appears during the softness and serenity 
of evening, and during the stillness and solemnity ni 
the moonlight night. 

There is no species of poetry, the productions of the 
the drama not excepted, so much calculated to influ- 
ence the morals, as well as the happiness of a people, 
as those popular veises which are associated with na- 
tional airs ; and which being learned in the years of 
infancy make a deep impression on the heart before the 



evolut 



landing. The 
presented in a 
lost important 
lion. Like all 
deuce ot senli- 
increase those 
ir native soil, 
fancy ; and to 



of the 

compositions of Bonis of this kind, nov 
collected form to the world, make a 
addition to the popular songs of his n 
his other writings, they exhibit indept 
ment ; they are peculiarly calculated t 
ties which bind generous hearts to th 
and to the domestic circle of their ii 
cherish those sensibilities which, under due restric- 
tion, iorm the purest happiness of our nature. If in 
his unguarded moments he composed some songs on 
which this praise cannot be bestowed, let us hope that 
they will speedily be forgotten. In several instances, 
where Scottish airs were allied to words objectionable 
in point of delicacy, Burns has substituted others of a 
purer character. On such occasions, without chang- 
ing the subject, he has changed the sentiments. A 
proof of this may be seen in the air of John Anderson 
my Joe, which is now united to words that breathe a 
strain of conjugal tenderness, that is as highly moral 
as it is exquisitely affecting. 

Few circumstances could afford a more striking 
proof of the strength of Burns's genius than the gene- 
ral circulation of his poems in England, notwithstand- 
ing the dialect in whj-ih the greater part are written, 
and which might be it-pf.osed to render them here un- 
couth or obscure. £r. some instao.es he has used 
this dialect on subjects of a subline nature - but in 

K 



general he confines it to 'sentiments or descriptions o. 
a tender or humourous kind ; and where he rises into 
elevation ot thought, he assumes a purer English style. 
The singular faculty he possessed of mingling in the 
same poem, humorous sentiments and descriptions, 
with imagery of a sublime and terrific nature, enabled 
him to use this variety of dialect on some occasions 
with striking effect. His poem of Tarn o'Shanler af- 
fords an instance of this. There he passes from a scene 
of the lowest humour, to situations of the most awful 
and terrible kind. He is a musician that from the 
lowest to the highest of his keys ; and the use of the 
Scottish dialect enables him to add two additional 
notes to the bottom of his scale. 



Great efforts have been made by the inhabitants of 
Scotland, of the superior ranks, to approximate in 
their speech to the pure English standard ; and this 
has made it difficult to write in the Scottish dialect, 
without exciting in them some feelings of disgust, 
which in England are scarcely felt. Ai\ Englishman 
who understands the meaning of the Scottish words, is 
nol offended, nay, on certain subjects, he is perhaps, 
pleased with the rustic dialect, as he may be wilh the 
Doric Greek of Theocritus. 

But a Scotchman inhabiting his own country, if a 
man of education, and more especially if a literary 
character, Iras banished such words from his writings, 
and has attempted to banish them from his speech : 
and being accustomed to hear them from the vulgar, 
daily, does not easily admit of their use in poetry, 
which requires a style elevated and ornamental. A 
dislike of this kind is, however, accidental, not nat- 
ural, ltisoneofthe species ol disgust which we feel 
at seeing a female of high birth in the d-ess of a rustic ; 
which, if she be really young and beautiful, a little 
habit will enable us to overccrr-e. A lady who assumes 
such a dress, puts her beauty, indeed, to a severer tri- 
al. She rejects — she indeed, opposes the influence of 
fashion ; she possibly abandons the grace Of elegant 
and Sowing drapery ; but her native charms remain 
the more striking, perhaps, because the less adorned ; 
and to these she trusts for fixing her empire on those 
affections over which fashion has no sway. If she suc- 
ceeds, a new association arises. The dress of the 
beautiful rustic becomes it self beautiful, and establishes 
a new fashion for the young and gay. And when in 
after ages, the contemplating observer shall view her 
picture in the gallery that contains the portraits of the 
beauties of successive centuries, each in the dress of 
her respective day, her drapery will not deviate, moie 
than that of her rivals, from the standard of his taste, 
ind he will give the palm to her who excels in the lin- 
eaments of nature. 

Burns wrote professedly for the peasantry of his 
country, and by them their native dialect is universal- 
ly relished. To a numerous class of the natives of 
Scotland of another description, it may alto be consid- 
ered as attractive in a different point of view. Estran- 
ged from their native soil, and spread over foreign 
lands, the idiom of their country mutes with the senti- 
ments and the descriptions on which it is employed, to 
recal to their minds the interesting scenes of infancy 
and youth — to awaken many pleasing, many tender 
recollections. Literary men, residing at Edinburgh 
or Aberdeen, cannot judge on this point for one iiun» 
died and fifty thousand of their expatriated country- 
men.* 



* These observations are excited by some remarks 
of respectable correspondents of the description alluded 
to. This calculation of the number of Scotchmen liv- 
ing oqt of Scotland is not altogether arbitrary, and it 
is probably below the truth. It is, in some degree 
founded on the proportion between the number of the 
sexes in Scotland, as it appears from the invaluable 
Statistics of Sir John Sinclair. For Scotchmen ofthi* 
description, more particularly, ;3-irns seems to hav 
written his song, beginning, Their groves o' siwe 

2 



53 



THS LIFE OF BURNS. 



To the use of the Scottish dialect in one species of 
poetry, the composition of songs, the tasie ol the pub- 
lic has been for some time reconciled. The dialect in 
question excels, as has already been observed, in the 
copiousness and exactness of its terms lor natural ob- 
jects ; and in pastoral or rural songs, it gives a Doiic 
simplicity, which is very generally approved. Neither 
does the regret seem well founded which some persons 
of taste have expresseu, :hs.t Burns used this dialed 
in so many other of his compositions. His declared 
purpose was to paint the manners ol rustic life anions 
his " humble compeeis," and it isnoteasy to conceive 
that this could have been done with equal humour 
and effect, if he had not adopted their idiom. There 
are some, indeed, who will think the subject too low 
for poetry. Persons of this sickly taste will find their 
delicacies consulted in many a polite and learned 
author: Jet them not seek for gratification in the 
rough and vigorous lines, in the unbridled humour, 
or in the overpowering sensibility of this bard of na- 
ture. 

To determine the comparative merit of Burns would 
be no easy task. Many persons, afterwards distin- 
guished in literature, have been born in as humble a 
situation of life ; but it would be difficult to find any 
other who, while earning his subsistence by daily la- 
bour, has written verses which have attracted and re- 
lained universal attention, and which are likely to give 
the author a permanent and distinguished place among 

myrtle, a beautiful strain, which, it may be confidently 
predicted, will be sung with equal or superior interest 
on the banks of the Ganges or of the Mississippi, as on 
those of the Tay or the Tweed. 



the followers of the muses. If he is deficient in grace. 
he is distinguished for ease as well as energy ; and 
these are indications of the higher order of genius. — 
The father of epic poetry exhibits one of his heroes as 
excelling in strength, another in swiftness — to form 
his perfect warrior, these attributes are combined — 
Every species of intellectual superiority admits per- 
haps of a similar arrangement. One writer excels in 
force— another in ease: he is superior to them both, 
in whom both these qualities are united. Of Ho- 
mer himself it may be said, that, like his own Achillies, 
lie surpasses his competitors in nobility as well as 
strength. 

The force of Burns lay in the powers of his under- 
standing, and in the sensibility of his heart ; and these 
will be found to infuse the living principle into all the 
works of genius which seem destined to immortality. 
His sensibility had an uncommon range. He was 
alive to every species of emotion. He is one of the Jew 
poets that can be mentioned, who have at once ex- 
celled iii humour, in tenderness, and in sublimity; a 
praise unknown to the ancients, and which in modern 
times is only due to Ariosto, to .Shakspeare, and per- 
haps to Voltaire To compare the writings of the 
Ncoitish peasant with the works of these giants in lit- 
erature, n'light appear presumptuous ; yet it may be 
asserted that he has displayed live foot of Hercules. 
I low near he might have approached them by proper 
culture, wiili lengthened years, and under happier 
auspices, it is not for us to calculate. But while we 
1 mi over the melancholy story of his life, it is impossi- 
ble not to heave a sigh at the asperity of his fortune ; 
and as we survey the records ofhis mind, it is easv to 
see, that out of such materials have been reared tne 
fairest and the mofct durable of the monuments ot 
genius. 



TO 

DR. CURRXE'S 
EDITION OF THE CORRESPONDENCE. 



is impossible to dismiss this volume* of the Cor- 
">ndence of our Bard, without some anxiety as to 
tne reception it may meet with. The experiment 
we are malting has not often been tried ; perhaps on 
no occasion has so large a portion of the recent and 
unpremeditated effusions of a man of genius been 
committed to the press. 

Of the following letters of Burns, a considerable 
number were transmitted for publication, by the indi- 
viduals to whom they were addressed ; but very few 
have been printed entire. It will easily be believed, 
that in a series of letters written without the least 
view to publication, various passages were touud unfit 
for the press, from different considerations. It will 
also be readily supposed, that our poet, writing near- 
ly at the same time, and under the same feelings to 
different individuals, would sometimes fall into the 
same train of sentiment and forms of expression. To 
avoid, therefore, the tediousness of such repetitions, it 
has been found necessary to mutilate many of the in- 
dividual letters, and sometimes to exscind parts of 
great delicacy— the unbridled effusions of panegyric 
and regard. But though many of the letters are 
printed from originals furnished by the persons to 
whom they were addressed, others are printed from 
first draughts, or sketches, found among the papers of 
our Bard. Though in general no man committed his 
thoughts to his correspondents with less consideration 
or effort than Burns, yet it appears that in some in- 
stances he was dissatisfied with his first essays, and 
wrote out his communications in a fairer character, or 
perhaps in more studied language. In the chaos of 
bis manuscripts, some of the original sketches were 
fcund ; and as these sketches, though less perfect, are 
fairly to be considered as the offspring of his mind, 
where they have seemed in themselves worthy of a 

* Dr. Currie's edition of Burns's Works was origi- 
nally published in four volumes, of which the follow- 
ing Correspondence formed the second. 



place in this volume, we have not hesitated to inxrrt 
them, though they may not always correspond exact!/ 
with the letters transmitted, which have been lost cr 
withheld. 

Our author appears at one time to have formed an 
intention of making a collection of his letters for the 
amusement of a friend. Accordingly he copied an in- 
considerable number of them into a book, which lie 
presented to Robert Riddel, of Glenriddel, Esq. — 
Among these was the account of his life, addressed to 
Doctor Moore, and printed in the first volume.* In 
copying from his imperfect sketches, (it does not ap- 
pear that he bad the letters actually sent to his cor- 
respondents before him,) he seems to have occasionally 
enlarged his observations, and altered his expressions. 
In such instances his emendations have been adopted ; 
but in truth there are but five of the letters thus se- 
lected by the poet, to be found in the present volume, 
the rest being thought of inferior merit, or otherwise 
unfit for the public eye. 

In printing this volume, the editor has found some 
corrections of grammar necessary ; but these have 
been very few, and such as may be supposed to occur 
in the careless effusions, even of literary characters, 
who have not been in the habit of carrying their com- 
positions to the press. These corrections have never 
been extended to any habitual modes of expression of 
the poet, even where his phraseology may seem to vi- 
olate the delicacies of taste ; or the idion. of our lan- 
guage, which he wrote in general with great accuracy. 
Some difference will indeed be found in this respect in 
his earlier and in his later compositions ; and this 
volume will exhibit the progress of his style, as well as 
the history of his mind. In the fourth edition, several 
new letters were introduced, and some of inferior im- 
portance were omitted. 

* Occupying from page 9 to page 16 of this Edition. 



GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE 

OF 

ROBERT BURNS 

LETTERS, &c. 



No. I. 

TO MR. JOHN MURDOCH, 
SCHOOLMASTER, 
(STAPLES INN BUILDINGS, LONDON. 
Lochlee, 15(A January, 1783. 
DEAR SIR, 

As I hare an opportunity of sending you a let 
ter, without putting you to that expense which any 
production of mine would but ill repay, 1 embrace it 
with pleasure, to tell you that I have not forgotten nor 
^«ver will forget, the many obligations I lie under to 
/our 'kindness and friendship. 

a do not doubt, Sir, but you will wish to know what 
has been the result of all the pains of an indulgent fa- 
ther, and a masterly teacher ; and I wish 1 could grat 
!iy your curiosity with such a recital as von would be 
pleased with ; but that is what 1 am afraid 
be the case I have, indeed, kept pretty ( 
Ticious habits ; and in this resect, 1 hope my condu 
will not disgrace the education I have gotten : but as 
a man of the world, I am most miserably deficient.— 
One would have thought that bred as I havj been, 
under a father who has figured pretty well as un horn- 
me des affairrs, 1 might have been what the world 
calls a pushing, active fellow ; but, to tell yon the 
truth, Sir, there is hardly any thing more my reverse. 
1 seem to be one sent into the world to see, and ob- 
serve ; and 1 very easily compound with the knave 
who tricks me of my money, if there be any thing ori- 
ginal about him which shows me human nature in a 
different light horn anything I have seen before. Jn 
short, the joy of my heart is to " study men, their 
manners, and their ways :" and for this darting ob- 
ject, I cheerfully sacrifice every other consideration. I 
am quite indolent about those great concerns that set 
the bustling busy sons of care agog ; and if I have to 
answer for the present hour, I am very easy with re- 
gard to any thing further. Even the last worthy 
shift, of the unfortunate and the wretched, does not 
much terrify me : I know that even then my talent 
for what country-folks call " a sensible crack " when 
once it is sanctified by a hoary head, would procure me 
so much esteem, that even then — 1 would learn to be 
happy.* However, I am under no apprehensions 
about that ; for, though indolent, yet, so far as an ex 
tremely delicate constitution permits, I am not lazy ; 
»nd in many things, especially in tavern-matters, 1 
am a strict economist ; not indeed for the sake of the 
money, mit one of the principal parts in my composi 
Uon is a kind of pride of stomach, and 1 scorn to fear 

* The last shift alluded to here, must be the condi- 
tion of an itinerant beggar. 



the face of any man living ; above every thing, 1 at>- 
hor, as hell, the idea of sneaking in a corner to avoid 
a dun — possibly some pitiful, sordid wretch, whom In 
my hear*. I despise and detest. 'Tisthis, and this 
alone, that endears economy to me. In the matter 
of hooks, indeed, 1 am very profuse. My favourite 
authors are of the sentimental kind, such asShenelone, 
particularly his Elegies; Thomson ; Man of Feeling, 
a book I prize next to the Bible ; Man of the World; 
S/erne. especially his Sentimental Journey ; M'Pher- 
son's Ossian, &c. These are the glorious models 
after which I endeavour to form my conduct ; and 'tis 
incongruous, 'tis absurd, to suppose that, the man 
whose mind glows with the sentiments lighted up at 
their sacred flame— the man whose heart distends 
with benevolence to all the human race — he "who 
can soar above this little scene of things," can he de- 
scend to mind the paltry concerns about which the 
Eerrffifilial race fret, and fume, and vex themselves? 
O how the glorious triumph swells my heart ! I for- 
get that I am a poor insignificant devil, unnoticed and 
unknown, stalking up and down fairs and markets, 
wlien I happen to he in them, reading a page or two 
of mankind, and "catching the manners living as they 
rise," whilst the men of business jostle me on every 
an idle incumbrance in their way. But I dare 
ave by this time tired your patience ; so I shall 
ie with begging you to give Mrs. Murdoch — not 
my compliments, for that is a mere common-place sto- 
ry, but my warmest, kindest wishes for her welfare ; 
and accept of the same for yourself from, Dear Sir, 
Your's,&c. 



No. II. 

The following is taken from the MS. Prose presented 
by our Bard to Mr. Riddel. 

On rummaging over some old papers, I lighted on a 
MS. of my early years, in which I had determined Vo 
write myself out, as I was placed by fortune among a 
class of men to whom my ideas would have been non- 
sense. 1 had meant that the book should have lain by 
me, in the fond hope that, some time or other, even 
after I was no more, my thoughts would fall into th« 
bands of somebody capable of appreciating their val- 
ue. It sets off thus : 

Observations, Hints, Sings, Scraps of Poetry, &o. 
by R. B. — a man who had little art in making money, 
and still less in keeping it ; but was, however, a man 
of some sense, a great deal of honesty, and unbounded 
good will to every creature rational and irrational.— 
As he was hu*. little indebted to scholastic education, 
and bred at a plough tail, his performances must b« 
strongly tinctured with his unpolished rustic way of 
life ; but as I believe they are really his own, it may be 
some entertainment to a curious observer of human 
nature, to see how a ploughman thinks and feels, un- 
der the pressure of love, ambition, anxiety, grief, with 



LETTERS. 



61 



the like cares and passions, which, however diversi- 
fied by the modes and manners of life, operate pretty 
aiuch alike, I believe, on all the species. 

" There are numbers in the world who do not want 
♦enee to make a figure, so much as an opinion of their 
own abilities, to put them upon recording their obser- 
vations, and allowing them the same importance, 
which they do to those which appear in print." — Sfien- 

" Pleasing, when youth is long expit'd, to trace 
The forms out pencil or our'pen designed ! 

Such was our youthful air, and shape, and face, 
Such the Softimage of our youthful mind." — Ibid. 

Apri!, 1783. 
Notwithstanding all that has been said against love, 
respecting the folly and weakness it leads a young in- 
experienced mind into; still I think it in a great 
measure deserves the highest encomiums that have 
been passed upon it. If any thing on earth deserves 
the name of rapture or transport, it is the feelings of 
green eighteen, in the company of the mistress of his 
heart, when she repays him with an equal return of 
affection. 



August. 
There is certainly some connexion between love, 
and music, and poetry ; and therefore I have always 
thought a fine touch of nature, that passage in a mod- 
ern love composition : 

" As tow'rd her cot he jogg'd along, 
Her name was frequent in his song." 

For my own part, I never had the least thought or 
inclination of turning poet, till I got once heartily in 
love ; and then rhyme and song were, in a manner, 
♦ he spontaneous language of my heart. 

September. 
I entirely agree with that judicious philosopher, Mr. 
Smith, in his excellent Theory of Moral Sentiments, 
that remorse is the most painful sentiment that can 
imbitter the human bosom. Any ordinary pitch of for- 
titude may bear up tolerably well under those calami- 
ties, in the procurement of which we ourselves have 
had no hand ; but when our own follies, or crimes 
have made us miserable and wretched, to bear up with 
manly firmness, and at the same time have a proper 
penitential sense of our misconduct, is a glorious ef- 
iort of 6elf command. 

" Of all the numerous ills that hurt our peace, 

That press the soul, or wring the mind with auguish, 

Beyond comparison the worst are those 

That to our folly or our guilt we owe. 

In every other circumstance the mind 

Has to say — ' It was no deed of mine ;' 

But when to all the evils of misfortune 

This sting is added — ' Blame thy foolish self !' 

Or worser far, the pangs of keen remorse ; 

The torturing, gnawing consciousness of guilt — 

Of guilt, perhaps, where we : ve involved others ; 

The young, the innocent, who fondly lov'd us, 

Nay, more, that very love their cause of ruin! 

O burning hell ! in all thy store of torments, 

There's not a keener lash ! 

r,ives there a man so firm, who, while his heart 

r'eels all the bitter horrors of his crime, 

Can reason down its agonizing throbs ; 

Ann, after proper purpose of amendment, 

^d.o firmly force his jarring thoughts to peace ? 

") nappy ! happy ! enviable man ! 

"• glorious magnanimity of soul !'' 



March, 1784. 
I have often observed, in the course of my experi- 
ence of human life, that every man, even the worst, 
has something good about him; though very often no- 
thing else than a happy temperament of constitution 
inclining him to this or that virtue. For this reason, 
no man can say in what degree any other person, be- 
side himself, can be, with strict justice, called wicked. 
Let any of the strictest character for regularity of con- 
duct among U9, examine impartially how many vicea 
he has never been guilty of, not from any care or vigi- 
lance, but for want of opportunity, or some accidental 
circumstance intervening ; how many of the weak- 
nesses of mankind he has escaped, because he was out 
of the line of such temptation ; and, what often, if not 
always, weighs more than all the rest, how much he is 
indebted to the world's good opinion, because the world 
does not know all. I say any man who can thus think, 
will scan the failings, nay, the faults and crimes of 
mankind around him, with a brother's eye* 

I have often courted the acquaintance of that part 
of mankind commonly known by the ordinary phrase 
of blackguards, sometimes farther than was consist- 
ent with the safety of my character ; those who, by 
thoughtless prodigality or headstrong passions have 
been driven to ruin. Though disgraced by follies, nay, 
sometimes " stained with guilt, * * * * * *," 
I have yet found among them, in not a few in- 
stances, some of the noblest virtues, magnanimity, 
generosity, disinterested friendship, and even mod- 
esty. 



April. 
As I am what the men of the world, if they knew 
such a man, would call a whimsical mortal, I have va- 
rious sources of pleasute and enjoyment, which are, 
in a manner, peculiar to myself, or some here and 
there such other out-of-the-way person. Such is the 
peculiar pleasure 1 take in the season of winter, more 
than the rest of the year. This, I believe, may be 
partly owing to my misfortunes giving my mind a 
melancholy cast ; but there is something even in the 

" Mighty tempest, and the hoary waste 

Abrupt and deep.stretch'd o'er the buried earth."— 

which rises the mind to a serious sublimity, favourable 
to every thing great and noble. There is scarcely any 
earthly object gives me more — I do not know if I 
should call it pleasure — but something which exalts 
me something which enraptures me — than to walk in 
the sheltered side of a wood, or high plantation, in a 
cloudy winter-day, and hear the stormy wind howling 
among the trees and raving over the plain. It is amy 
best season for devotion ; my mind is rapt up in a kind 
of enthusiasm to Him, who in the pompous language 
of the H-i.rew bard, " walks on the wings of the wind." 
In o" s ot these seasons just after a train of misfortunes, 
T .omposed the following : 

The wintry west extends his blast, &c— Poems, p. 25. 

Shenstone finely observes, that love-verses writ with- 
out any real passion, are the most nauseous of all con- 
ceits ; and 1 have often thought that no man can be a 
proper critic of love composition, except he himself, in 
one or more instances, have been a warm votary of 
this passion. As I have been all along a miserable 
dupe to love, and have been led into a thousand weak- 
nesses and follies by it, for that reason I put the more 

onfidence in my critical si " 

nd conceit from real pas 
the following song will stand ihe test, I will not pretend 
• o say, because it is my own ; only 1 can say it was, at 
the time genuine from the heart. 

Behind yon hills, &c— See Poems, p. 40. 



I think the whole species of young men be nat- 
urally enough divided into two grand classes, which 



62 



LETTERS. 



■hall call the grave and the merry ; though, by the by, 
these terms do not with propriety enough express my 
ideas. The grave 1 shall cast into the usual division 
of those who are goaded on by the love of money, and 
those whose darling wish is to make a figure in the 
world. The merry are, the men of pleasure of all de- 
nominations ; the jovial lads, who have too much live 
and spirit to have any settled rule of action ; but, with 
out much deliberation follow the strong impulses of 
nature : the thoughtless, the careless, the indolent 
— in particular he, who, with a happy sweetness of 
natural temper, and a cheerful vacancy of thought, 
steals through life — generally, indeed, in poverty and 
obscurity ; but poverty and obscurity are only evils to 
him who can sit gravely down and make a repining 
comparison between his own situation and that of oth- 
ers ; and lastly, to grace the quorum, such as are, gen- 
erally, those whose heads are capable of all the tower- 
ings of genius, and whose hearts are warmed with all 
.ne delicacy of feeling. 



As the grand end of human life is to cultivate an in- 
tercourse with that Being to whom we owe our life, 
with every enjoyment that can render life delightful ; 
and to maintain an integritive conduct towards our 
fellow-creatures ; that so, by forming piety and virtue 
into habit, we may be fit members of that society of the 
pious and the good, which reason and revelation teach 
us to except beyond the grave ; I do not see that the 
turn of mind and pursuits of any son of poverty and 
obscurity, are in the least more inimical to the sacred 
interests of piety and virtue, than the even lawful, 
bustling and straining after the world's riches and 
honours ; and 1 do not see but that he may gain Hea- 
ven as well (which, by the by, is no mean considera- 
tion,) who steals through the vale of life, amusing him- 
self with every little flower, that fortune throws in his 
way ; as he who, straining straight forward, and per- 
haps bespattering all about him, gains some of life's 
little eminences ; where, after all, he can only see, and 
be seen, a little more conspicuously than what, in the 
pride of his heart, he is apt to term the poor indolent 
devil he has left behind him. 



There is a noble sublimity, a heart-melting tender- 
ness, in some of our ancient ballads, which show them 
lo be the work of a masterly hand ; and it has often 
given me many a heart-ache to reflect, that such glori- 
ous old bards--bards who very probably owed all their 
talents to native genius, yet have described the ex- 
ploits of heroes, the pangs of disappointment, and the 
meltings of love, with such fine strokesof natuie — that 
their very names (O how mortifying to a bard's vani- 
ty ) are now " buried among the wreck of things which 
were." 

O ye illustrious names unknown ! who could feel so 
strongly and describe so well : the last, the meanest 
of the muses' train — one who, though far inferior lo 
your flights, yet eyes your path, and with trembling 
wing would sometimes soar after you— a poor rustic 
bard unknown, pays this sympathetic pang to your 
memory I Some of you tell us with all the charms of 
verse, that you have been unfortunate in the world — 
unfortunate in love ; he too has felt the loss of his little 
fortune, the loss of friends, and, worse than all, the 
loss of a woman he adored. Like you, all his conso- 
lation was his muse ; she taught him in the rustic mea- 
sures to complain. Happy could he have done it with 
your strength of imagination and flow of verse I May 
the turf lie lightly on your bones! and may you now 
enjoy that solace and rest which this world rarely gives 
to the heart tuned to all the feelings of poesy and 
love! 



ah 



This is all worth quoting in my MSS and more than 



R. B. 



No. Ill, 

TO MR. AIKEN. 

The Gentleman to whom The Cotter' t Saturday Night 
is addressed. 

Ayrshire 1786. 
SIR, 

I was with Wilson, my printer, t'other day, and set 
tied all our by-gcne matters between us. After I had 
paid him all demands, 1 made him the offer of the se- 
cond edition, on the hazard of being paid out of the 
first and readiest, which he declines. By his account 
the paper of a thousand eopies would cost about twen- 
ty-seven pounds, and the printing about fifteen or six- 
teen ; he offers to agree to this for the printing, if 1 will 
advance forthe paper ; but this youknow, is rut of my 
power, so farewell hopes of a second edition t\!l I grow 
richer! an epocha, which, I think, will arrive at the 
payment of the British national debt. 

There is scarcely any thing hurts me so much in be- 
ing disappointed of my second edition, as not having 
it in my power to show my gratitude to Mr. Ballaiv- 
tyne, by publishing my poem of The Brigs of Ayr. I 
would detest myself as a wretch, if I thought 1 were 
capable, in a very long life, of forgetting the honest, 
warm, and tender delicacy with which he enters into 
my interests. lam sometimes pleased with myself in 
rnygrateful sensations; but I believe, on the whole, I 
have very little merit in it, as my gratitude ie not a 
virtue, the consequence of reflection, but sheerly the 
instinctive emotion of a heart too inattentive to al- 
low worldly maxims and views to settle into selfish 



I have been feeling all the various rotations aiid 
movements within, respecting the excise. There are 
many things plead strongly against it, the uncertainty 
of getting soon into business, the consequences of my 
follies, which may perhaps make it impracticable for 
me to stay at home ; and besides, 1 have for some time 
been pining under secret wretchedness, from causes 
which you pretty well know — the pang of disappoint- 
ment, the sting of pride, with some wandering stabs of 
remorse, which never fail to settle on my vitals like 
vultures, when attention is not called away by the 
calls of society, or the vagaries of the muse. Even in 
the hour of social mirth, my gayety is the madness of 
an intoxicated criminal under the hands of an execu- 
tioner. All these reasons urge me to go abroad ; and 
to all these reasons 1 have only one answer — the feel- 
ings of a father. This, in the present mood lam in, 
overbalances every thing that can be laid in the scale 
against it. 



You may perhaps think it an extravagant fancy, 
but it is a sentiment which strikes home to my 
very soul ; though sceptical in some points of our cur- 
rent belief, yet, I think, I have every evidence for the 
reality of a life beyond the stinted bourn of our present 
existence ; if so, then how should I, in the presence of 
that tremendous Heing, the Author of existence, how 
should I meet the reproaches of those who stand tome 
in the dear relation of children, whom I deserted in 
the smiling innocency of helpless infancy ? O thou 
great, unknown tower! thou Almighty God! who 
has lighted up reason in my breast, and blessed me 
with immortality ! 1 have frequently wandered from 
that order and regularity necessary for the perfection 
of thy works, yet thou hast never 'eft me nor forsaken 
me. 



Since I wrote the foregoing sheet, 1 have seen some- 
thing of the storm of mischief thickening over my fol- 
ly-devoted head. Should you. my friends, my bene- 
factors, be successful in your applications for me, per* 
haps it may not be in my power in that way to reap 
the fruitof your friendly 'efforts. What 1 have written 



LETTERS. 



63 



in the preced.ng pages it the settled tenor of my preaen t 
resolution; bvit should inimical circumstances forbid 
pie closing with your kind offer, or, enjoyiug it, only 
threaten to entail father misery — 



To tell the truth. I have little reason for complaint, 
as the world, in general, has been kind to me, fully up 
to my deserts. 1 was, for some time past, fast getting 
into the pining, distrustful snarl of the misanthrope. 1 
saw myself alone, unfit for the struggle of life, Shrink- 
ing at every rising cloud in the chance-directed atmos- 
phere of fortune, while, all defenceless, I looked about 
in vain for a cover. It never occurred to me, at least 
never with the force it deserved, that this world is a 
busy scene, and a man a creature destined for a pro- 
gressive struggle ; and that however I might possess a 
warm heart, and inoffensive manners, (which last, by 
the by, was rather more than I could well boast) still, 
more than these passive qualities, there was some- 
thing to be done. When all my school-fellows and 
youthful compeers (those misguided few excepted who 
joined, to use a Gentoo phrase, the hallachores of the 
human race,) were striking off with eager hope and 
earnest intention some one or other of the many paths 
of busy life, I was staudiug ' idle in the marketplace,' 
or only left the chase of the butterfly from flower to 
flower, to hunt fancy from whim to whim. 



You see, Sir, that if to know one's errors were a 
probability of mending them, I stand a fair chance, 
but, according to the reverend Westminster divines, 
though couviction must precede conversion, it is very 
far from always implying it.* 



No. I v. 



TO MRS. DUNLOP OF DUNLOP. 

Ayrshire, 1786. 
MADAM, 

I am truly sorry I was not at home yesterday when 
I was so much honoured with your order for my copies. 
and incomparably more by the handsome compliments 
you are pleased to pay my poetic abilities. I am fully 
persuaded that there is not any class of mankind so 
feelingly alive to the titillatione of applause, as the 
Bona of Parnassus ; nor is it easy to conceive how the 
heart of the poor bard dances with rapture, when those 
whose character in life gives them a right to be polite 
judges, honour him with their approbation. Had you 
been thoroughly acquainted with me, Madam, you 
could not have touched my darling heart chord more 
sweetly than by noticing my attempts to celebrate 
your illustrious ancestor, the Saviour of his Country. 

" Great patriot-hero ! ill-requited chief!" 

The first book I met with in my early years, which I 
perused with pleasure, was The Life of Hannibal; 
the next was The History of Sir William Wallace ; 
for several of my earlier years I had few other au- 
thors ; and many a solitary hour have I stole out, af- 
ter the laborious vocations of the day, to shed a tear 
over their glorious hut unfortunate stories. In those 
boyish days 1 remember in particular being struck 
with that part of Wallace's story where these lines 
occur — 

" Syne to the Leglen wood, when it was late, 
To make a silent and a safe retreat." 
I chose a fine summer Sunday, the only day in my line 
:»'life allowed, and walked half a dozen of miles to pay 

•This letter was evidently wri»- « under the distress 
of mind occasioned by our Poet ,. »eparation from Mrs. 
durna. £. 



my respects to Leglen wood, with as much devout en« 
thusiasm as ever pilgrim did to Loretto ; and, as I ex- 
plored every den and dell, where I could suppose my 
heroic countryman to have lodged, I recollect (for even 
then I was a rhymer) that my heart glowed with a 
wish to be able to make a song on him in some measure 
equal to his merits. 



No. V. 

TO MRS. STEWART, OF STAIR. 

1786. 

MADAM, 

The hurry of my preparations for going abroad has 
hindered me trom performing my promise as soon as I 
intended, I have here sent a parcel of songs, &c. which 
never made their appearance, except to a friend or 
two at most. Perhaps some of them may be no great 
entertainment to you ; but of that I am far from being 
an adequate judge. The song to the tune of Ettrick 
Banks, you will easily see the impropriety of exposing 
much, even in manuscript. 1 think, myself, it has 
some merit, both as a tolerable description of one of 
Nature's sweetest scenes, a July evening, and one of 
the finest pieces of Nature's workmanship, the finest, 
indeed, we know any thing of, an amiable, beautiful 
young woman ;* but 1 have no common friend to pro- 
cure me that permission, without which I would not 
dare to spread the copy. 

I am quite aware, Madam, what task the world 
would assign me in this letter. The obscure bard, 
when any of the great condescend to take notice of him, 
should heap the altar with the incense of flattery. -- 
Their high ancestry, their own great and godlike quali- 
ties and actions, should be recounted with the most 
exaggerated description. This, Madam, is a task for 
which I am altogether unfit. Besides a certain dis- 
qualifying pride of heart, I know nothing of your con- 
nexions in life, and have no access to where your real 
character is to be found — the company of your com- 
peers ; and more, I am afraid that even the most re- 
fined adulation is by no means the road to your good 
opinion. 

One feature of your character I shall ever with 
grateful pleasure remember — the reception I got when 
1 had the honour of waiting on you at Stair. I am 
little acquainted with politeness ; but I know a good 
deal of benevolence of temper and goodness of heart- 
Surely, did those in exalted stations know how happy 
they could make some classes of their inferiors by con- 
descention and affability, they would never stand so 
high, measuring out with every look the height of their 
elevation, but condescend as sweetly as did Mrs. Ste 
wait of Slair. 



VI. 



In the name of the nine. Amen. We Robert Burns 
by virtue of a warrant from Nature, bearing date the 
Twenty-fifth day of January, Anno Domini one thou- 
sand seven hundred and fifty-nine, f Poet-Laureat and 
Bard in Chief in and over the Districts and Countries 
of Kyle, Cunningham, and Carrick, of old extent, To 
our trusty and well-beloved Willimn Chalmers and 
John M'Adam, Students and Practitioners in the an- 
cient and mysterious Science of Confounding Right 
and Wrong. 

RIGHT TRUSTY, 

Be i' i.own unto you, That whereas, in the course 
of our care and watchings over the Order and Police at 

* The song enclosed is the one beginning, 
'Twas even — the dewy fields were green, &c 

t His birth-dar. 



64 



LETTERS. 



all and sundry the Manufacturers, Retailers, and 
Venders of Poesy ; Bards, Poets, Poetasters. Rhym- 
er*, Jinglers, Songsters, Ballad-singers, &c, &c, 
&c, &c, &c, male and female — We i.kve discovered 
a certain, * * *, nefarious, abominable, and Wicked 
Song, or Ballad, a copy whereof We have here enclos- 
ed ; Our Will therefore is that Ye pitch upon and 
appoint the most execrable Individual of tbat most exe- 
crable Species, known by the appellation, phrase, and 
nickname of TheDeil's YtllNomle;" and, alter having 
caused him to kindle a fire at the Cross of Ayr, ye shall 
at noodtideof the day, put into the said wretch's merci- 
less hands the said copy of the said nefarious and wick- 
ed Song, to be consumed by fire in the presence of all 
Beholders, in abhorrence of, and terrorum to all such 
Compositions nndComposers. And this in nowise leave 
ye undone, but have it executed in every point as this 
Our Mandate bears before the twenty fourth current, 
when in person, we hope to applaud your faithfulness 
and zeal. 

Given at Mnuchline, this twentieth day of Novem- 
ber, Anno Domini one thousand seven hundred and 
eighty-six.t 

GOD SAVE THE BARD! 



No. VII. 

DR. BLACKLOCK, 

TO THE REVEREND MR. G. LOWRIE. 

REVEREND AND DEAR SIR, 

I ought to have acknowledged your favour long ago, 
not only as a testimony of your kind remembrance, 
but as it gave me an opportunity of sharing one of the 
finest, and, perhaps, one of the most genuine enter- 
tainments, ot which the human mind is susceptible. A 
number of avocations retarded my progress in reading 
the poems ; at last, however, 1 have finished that 
pleasing perusal. Many instances have 1 seen of Na- 
ture's force and beneficence exerted under numerous 
and formidable disadvantages ; but none equal to that 
with which you have been kind enough to present me. 
There is a pathos and delicacy in his serious poems, a 
vein of wit and humour in those of a more festive turn, 
which cannot be too much admired, nor too warmly 
approved ; and I think 1 shall never open the book 
without feeling my astonishment renewed and in- 
creased. It was my wish to have expressed my ap- 
probation in verse ; but whether from declining life, or 
a temporary depression of spirits, it is at present out 
of my power to accomplish that agreeable intention. 

Mr. Stewart, Professor of Morals in U>'* Jniversi- 
ty, had formerly read me three of t lie po«.ns, and I 
had desired him to get my name inserted Hftjo^g the 
subscribers ; but whether this was done, or not., I 
never could learn. I have little intercourse with Dr. 
Blair, but will take care to have the poems communi- 
cated to him by the intervention of some mutual 
friend. It has been told me by a Gentleman, to whom 
1 showed the performances, and who sought a copy 
with diligence and ardour, that the whole impression 
is already exhausted. It were, therefore, much to 
be wished, for the sake of the young man, that a sec- 
ond edition, more numerous than the former, could 
immediately be printed : as it appears certain that its 
intrinsic merit and the exertion of the author's friends, 
might give it a more universal circulation than any 
thing of the kind which has been published wi'bin my 
memory. j 

* Old Bachelors. 

t Enclosed was the ballad, probably Holy Willie's 
Piayer. E. 

J The reader will perceive that this is the letter 
which produced the determination of our Bard to give 
up his scheme of going to the W est Indies, and to try 
ibe fate of a new Edition of his Poems in Edinburgh. 



No. VIII. 

FROM THE REVEREND MR. LOWRIE. 

22d December, 1786. 
DEAR SIR, 

I last week received a letter from Dr. Blacklock, in 
which he expresses a desire of seeing you, I write this 
to you, that you may lose no time in waiting upon him, 
should you not yet have seen him. 



I rejoice to hear, from all corners, of your rising fame, 
and I wish and expect it may tower still higher by the 
new publication. But, as a friend, I warn you to pre- 
pare to meet with your share of detraction and envy — 
a train that always accompany great men. Foryour 
comfort I am in great hopes that the, number of your 
friends and admirers will increase, and that you have 
some chance of ministerial, or even •.*'*•• 
patronage. Now, my friend, such rapid success is ve- 
ry uncommon : and do you think yourself in no danger 
of suffering by applause and a full purse ? Remember 
Solomon's advice, which he spoke from experience, 
" stronger is he that conquers," &c. Keep fast hold 
of your rural simplicity and purity, like Telemachua, 
by Mentor's aid, in Calypso's isle, or even in that of 
Cyprus. I hope you have also Minerva with you. 1 
need not tell you how much a modest diffidence and 
invincible temperance adorn the most shining talents, 
and elevate the mind, arid exalt and refine the i 
nation, even of a poet. 



tmagi- 



I hope you will not imagine I speak from suspicion or 
evil report. I assure you I speak from love and good 
report, and good opinion, and a strong desire to see 
you shine as much in the sunshine as you have done in 
the shade ; and in the practice, as you do in the the- 
ory of virtue. This is ray prayer, in return foryour 
elegant composition in verse. All here join in compli- 
ments and good wishes for your further prosperity. 



No. IX. 

TO MR. CHALMERS. 

Edinburgh, 'Tltn December, 1786. 
MY DEAR FRIEND, 

I confess i have sinned the sin for which there is 
hardly any forgiveness — ingratitude to friendship — in 
not writing to you sooner ; but of all men living, I had 
intended to send you an entertaining letter; and by 
all the plodding stupid powers that in nodding conceit- 
ed majesty preside over the dull routine of business— a 
heavily solemn oath this ! — 1 am, and have been ever 
since 1 came to Edinburgh, as unfit to write a letter of 
humour as to write a commentary on the Revelations. 



To make you some amends for what, before you 
reach this paragraph you will have suffered, I enclose 
you two poems 1 have carded and spun since I passed 
Glenbuck. One blank in the address to Edinburgh, 
" Pair B ," is the heavenly Miss Burnet, daugh- 
ter tu Lord Monboddo, at whose house I had the hon- 
our to be more than once. There has not been any 
thing nearly like her, in all the combinations of beauty, 
grace, and goodness, the great Creator has formed, 
since Milton's Eve on the first day of her existence. 

I have sent vou a parcel of subscription-bills ; and 
have written 'to Mr. Ballantyne and Mr. Aiken, to 
call on you for some of them, ii they want them. My 

A copy of this letter was sent by Mr. Lowrie to Mr. 
G. Hamilton, and by him communicated to Burn*, 
among whose papers it was found. 

For an account of Mr. Lowrie and his family, see 
•he letter of Gilbert Burns to the Editor. 



LETTERS. 



65 



direction it— care of Andrew Bruce, Merchant, 
Bridgwrtreet. 



No. X. 



TO THE EARL of eglinton. 

Edinburgh, January, 1787. 
MY LORD, 

As 1 have but slender pretensions to philosophy, 7 
cannot rise to the exalted ideas of a citizen of the 
world ; but have all those national prejudices which, I 
believe, grow peculiarly strong in the breast of a 
Scotchman. There is scarcely any thing to which 
am so feelingly alive, as the honour and welfare of 
my country ; and, as a poet, I have no higher enjoy- 
ment than singing her sons and daughters. Fate had 
cast my station in the veriest shades of life ; but never 
did a heart pant more ardently than mine, to be dis- 
tinguished ; though, till very iately, 1 looked in vain 
on every side for a ray of light. It is easy, then, to 
guess how much I was gratified with the countenance 
and approbation of one of my country s most illustri- 
ous sons, when Mr. Wauchope called on me yi sterday 
on the part of your Lordship. Your munificence, my 
Lord, certainly deserves my very grateful acknow- 
ledgments ; but your patronage is a bounty peculiarly 
suited to my feelings. 1 am not master enough of the 
etiquette of life, to know whether there be not some 
impropriety in troubling your Lordship with my 
thanks ; but my heart whispered me to do it. From 
the emotions of my inmost soul I doit. Selfish ingrat- 
itude, I hope, I am incapable of: and mercenary ser 
vility, I trust I shall ever have so much honest pride as 
to detest. 



No. XI. 



TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

Edinburgh, 15th January, 1787. 
MADAM, 

Yours of the 9th current, which I am this moment 
honoured with, is a deep reproach to me for ungrateful 
neglect. I will tell you the real truth, for I am miser- 
ably awkward at a fib ; 1 wished to have written to 
Dr! Moore before I wrote to you ; but though, every 
day since I received yours of December 30th, the idea, 
the wish to write to him, has constantly pressed on my 
thoughts, yet 1 could not for my soul set about it. 1 
know his fame and character, and I am one of " the 
sonsof little men.'' To write him a mere matter-of- 
fact affair, like a merchant's order, would be disgra- 
cing the little character I have ; and to write the au- 
thor of The View of Society and Manners a letter of 
sentiment — I declare every artery runs cold at the 
thought. I shall try, however, to write to him to-mor- 
row or next day. His kind interposition in my behalf 
I have already experienced, as a gentleman waited on 
me the other day on the part of Lord Eglington, with 
ten guineas, by way of subscription for two copies of 
my next edition. 

The word you object to in the mention I have made 
of my glorious countryman and your immortal ances- 
tor, is indeed borrowed from Thomson ; but it does 
not strike me as an improper epithet. I distrusted my 
own judgment on your finding fault with it, and ap- 
plied for the opinion of some of the literati here, who 
honour me with their critical strictures, and they all 
allow it to be proper. The song you ask I cannot re- 
collect, and 1 have not a copy of it. I have not com- 
posed any thing on the great Wallace, except what 
you have seen in print, and the inclosed, which I will 
print in this edition.* You will see 1 have mentioned 

* Stanzas in t"«e Vision, beginning "My stately 
t(wer or palace fair," and ending with the first Dnan. 



some others of the name. When I composed my 
Vision ;long ago, I attempted a description of Koyle, 
of which the additional stanzas are a part, as it 
originally stood. My heart glows with a wish to 
be able to do justice to the merits, of the Saviour of 
his Country, which, sooner or later, I shall at least 
attempt. 

You are afraid I shall grow intoxicated with my 
prosperity as a poet. Alas I Madam, 1 know mvsel'f 
and the world too well. 1 do not mean any ai'rs of 
affected modesty ; ] am willing to believe that my 
abilities deserved some notice ; but in a most enlight- 
ened, informed age and nation, when poetry is and 
hts been the study of men of the first natural genius, 
aided with all the powers of polite learning, polite 
books, and polite company— to be dragged forth to the 
lull glare of learned and polite observation, with all 
my imperfections of awkward rusticity and crude un- 
polished ideas on my head— I assure you, Madam, . 
do not dissemble when 1 tell you 1 tremble for the con- 
sequences. The novelty of a poet in my obscure situa- 
tion, without any of those advantages which are reck- 
oned necessary for that character, at least at this 
time of clay, has raised a partial tide of public notice, 
which has borne me to a height where I am absolute 
ly feelingly certain my abilities are inadequate tr 
support me ; and too sLi-ely do 1 see that time wher 
the same tide will leave me, and recede, perhaps, ai 
far below the mark of truth. I do not say this in th6 
ridiculous affectation of self-abasement and modesty. 
I have studied myself, and know what ground I occu- 
py ; and. however a friend or the world may differ 
from me in that particular, I sland for my own opinion 
in silent resolve, with all the tenaciousness of prosperi- 
ty. T mention this to you, once for all, to disburden 
my mind, and I do not wish to hear or say more about 
it. But 

"When proud fortune's ebbing tide recedes," 

you will bear me witness, that, when my bubble of 
fame was at the highest, I stood, unintcxicated, with 
the inebriating cup in my hand, looking forward with 
rueful resolvt to the hastening time when the blow of 
Calumny should dash it to the ground, with all the 
eagerness of vengeful triumph. 



Your patronising n.e, and interesting yourself in my 
fame and character as a poet, I rejoice in ; it exalts 
me in my own idea ; and whether you can or cannot 
aid me in my subscription is a trifle. Has a paltry 
subscription-bill any charms to the heart of a bard, 
compared with the patronage of the descendant of 
the immortal Wallace i 



No. XII. 

TO DR. MOORE. 

1787. 

SIR, 

Mrs. Dunlop has heen so kind as to send me ex 
tracts of letters she has had from you, where you do 
the rustic bard the honour of noticing him and hia 
works. Those who have felt the anxieties and solici- 
tude of authorship, can only know what pleasure it 
gives to be noticed in such a manner by judges ot We 
first character. Your criticisms, Sir, I receive with 
reverence ; only 1 am sorry they mostly came too 
late ; a peccant passage or two, that I would certainly 
have altered, were gone to the press. 

The hope to be admired for ages is, in by far the 
greater part of those even who were authors of repute, 
an unsubstantial dream. For my part, my first am- 
bition was, and still my strongest wish is, to please 
my compeers, the rustic inmates of the hamlet, while 
ever-changing language and manners shall allow me 
to be relished and understood. I am very willing te 
admit that i have some poetical abilities ; and aa lew 



LETTERS. 



If any writers, either moral or political, are intimately 
acquainted with the classes of mankind among whom I 
Have chiefly mingled, I may have seen men and man- 
ners in a different phasis from what is common, which 
may assist originality of thought. Still I know very 
well the novelty of my character has by far the great- 
est share in the learned and polite notice I have lately 
had ; and in a language where I'ope and Churchill 
have raised the laugh, and Shenstone and Gray drawn 
the tear — where Thomson and Beatlie have painted 
the landscape, and Lyttletonand Collins described the 
heart, I am not vaiu enough to hope for distinguished 
poetic fame. 



No. XIII. 

FROM DR. MOORE. 

Clifford-street, January ZSrl, 1787. 
SIR, 

I have just received your letter, by which I find 1 
have reason to complain of my friend Mrs. Dunlnp, for 
transmitting to you extracts from my letturs to her, 
by much too freely and too carelessly written for your 
perusal. I must forgive her, however, in considera- 
tion of her good intention, as you will forgive me, 1 
hope, for the freedom I use with certain expressions, 
in consideration of my admiration of the poems in gen- 
eral. If 1 may judge of the author's disposition Iroin 
his works, with all the good qualities of a poet, he has 
not the irritable temper ascribed to that race of men 
by one of their own number, whom you have the hap- 
piness to resemble in ease and curious felicity of ex- 
pression. Indeed the poetical beauties, however ori- 
ginal and brilliant, and lavishly scattered, are not all 
I admire in your works ; the love of your native coun- 
try, that feeling sensibility to all the objects of human- 
ity, and the independent spirit which breathes through 
the whole, give me a most favourable impression of the 
poet, and have made me often regret that I did not see 
the poems, the certain effect of which would have been 
my seeing the author last summer, when I was longer 
in Scotland than 1 have been for many years. 

I rejoice very sincerely at the encouragement you re- 
ceive at Edinburgh, and I think you peculiarly fortun- 
ate in the patronage of Dr. Blair, who 1 am informed 
interests himself very much for you. 1 beg tube re- 
membered to him ; nobody can have a wanner regard 
for that gentleman than I have, which, independent 
of the worth of his character, would be kept alive by 
the memory of our common friend, the late Mr. George 



Before I received your letter, I sent inclosed in a let- 
ter to , a sonnet by Miss Williams a young poe- 
tical lady, which she wrote on reading your Mountain- 
Daisy ; perhaps it may not displease you.* 

I have been trying to add to the number of your sub- 
scribers, but fiud many of my acquaintance are. already 

* The Sonnet is as follows : 
While soon " the garden's flaunting flow'rs" decay 

And scatter'd on the earth neglected lie, 
The " Mountain Daisy," cherish'd hy the ray 

A poet drew from heaven, shall never die. 
Aii 1 like the lonely flower the poet rose ! 

'Mid penury's bare soil and bitter gale : 
He felt each storm that on the mountain blows, 

Nor ever knew the shelter of the vale. 
By genius in her native vigour nursed, 

On nature with impassion'.! look he gazed, 
Then through the cloud of adverse fortune bur3t 

Indignant, and in the light unborrow'd blazed. 
Scotia ! from rude afflictions shield thy bard, 
Wis heaven-taught numbers Fame herself will guard 



among them. 1 have only to add, that with every 
sentiment of esteem and the most cordial good wishes, 
I am, 

Your obedient, humble servant, 
J. MOORE. 



No. XIV. 



TO THE REV. G. LOWRIE, OF NEW-MILLS, 
NEAR KILMARNOCK. 

Edinburgh, 5th Feb. 17S7. 
REVEREND AND DEAR SIR, 

When I look at the date of your kind letter, my 
heart reproaches me severely with ingratitude in neg- 
lecting so long to answer it. I will not trouble you 
with any account, by way of apology, of my hurried 
life and distracted attention : do me the justice to be- 
lieve that my delay by no means proceeded from want 
of respect. I feel, and ever shall feel, for you, the 
mingled sentiments of esteem for a friend, and rever- 
ence for a father. 

I thank you, Sir, with all my soul, for your friendly 
hints ; though I do not need them so much as my 
friends are apt to imagine. You are dazzled with 
newspaper accounts and distant reports ; but in reali- 
ty, 1 have no great temptation to be intoxicated with 
the cup of prosperity. Novelty may attract the atten- 
tion of mankind awhile ; to it I owe my present eclat ; 
hut I see the lime not far distant, when the popular 
lide, which has borne me to a height of which I,am per- 
haps unworthy, shall recede with silent celerity, and 
leave me a barren waste of sand, to descend at my leis- 
ure to my former station. I do not say this in the af 
fectatipn of modesty; I see the consequence is una 
voidable, and am prepared for it. 1 had been at a 
good deal ot~ pains to form a just, impartial estimate of 
my intellectual powers, before I came here; I have 
not added, since I came to Kdinhurgh. any thing to the 
account ; and trust 1 shall take every atom of it back 
to my shades, the covei ts of my unnoticed, early 
yeai-3. 

In Dr. BKcklnck, whom I see very often, I have 
found, what I would have expected in our fiieiul, a 
clear head and un excellent heart. 

By far the most agreeable hours I spend in Edin- 
burgh must be placed to the account of Miss Lowrie 
and hei piano-forte. I cannot help repeating to you and 
Mrs. Lowrie a compliment that Mr. Mackenzie, the ce- 
lebrated 'Man of Feeling,' paid to Miss Lowrie theoth- 
er night, at the concert. 1 bad come in at the interlude, 
and sat down by him, till I saw Miss Lowrie in a seat 
not far distant, and went up to pay my respects to her. 
On my return to Mr. Mackenzie, he asked me who she 
was ; I told him 'twas the daughter of a reverend 
friend of mine in the west country. He returned, 
There was something very striking, to his idea, in her 
appearance. On my desiringto know what it was, be 
was pleased to say, " She has a great deal of the ele- 
gance of a well breu lady about her, with all the sweet 
simplicity of a country girl." 

My compliments to all the happy inmates of Saint 
Margarets. 

I am, dear Sir, 

Yours most gratefully, 

ROBT. BURNS. 



XV. 

TO DR. MOORE. 



Edinburgh, 15lh February, 1787. 



I ardon my seeming neglect in delaying so long to 
acknowledge the honour you have done me, in your 
kind notice of me, January 23d. Not many months 



LETTERS. 



67 



MO] I knew no other employment than following the 
plough, nor could boast any thing higher than a distant 
acquaintance with a country clergyman. Mere great- 
oess never embarrasse3 me ; I have nothing to ask from 
the great, and I do not fear their judgment ; but 
genius, polished by learning, and at its proper point 
of elevation in the eye ot the world, this of late 
I frequently meet with, and tremble at ita approach. 
I scorn the affectation of seeming modesty to cover 
self-conceit. That I have some merit, 1 do not deny ; 
but I see, with frequent wringinga of heart, that the 
novelty of my character, and the honest national 
prejudice of my countrymen, have borne me to a 
height altogether untenable to my abilities. 

For the houour Miss W. has done me, please, Sir, 
return her, in my name, my most grateful thanks. 1 
have more than once thought of paying her in kind, 
but have hitherto quitted the idea in hopeless despon- 
dency. I had never before heard of her ; but the oth- 
er day I got her poems, which for several reasons, 
some belonging to the head, and others the offspring of 
the heart, gave me a great deal of pleasure. 1 have lit- 
tle pretensions to critic lore ; there are, I think, two 
characteristic features in her poetry — the unfettered 
wild flight of native genius, and the querulous, sombre 
tenderness of time-settled sorrow. 

I only know what pleases me, often without being 
able to tell why. 



No. XVI. 

PROM DR. MOORE. 

Clifford-Street, 26th Febiiiary, 1787. 
DEAR SIR, 

Your letter of the 15th gave me a great deal of plea- 
sure. It is not surprising that you improve in correct- 
ness and taste, considering where you have been for 
some time past. And I dare swear there is no danger 
of your admitting any polish which might weaken the 
vigour of your native powers. 

I am glad to perceive that you disdain the nauseous 
affectation of decrying your own merit as a poet, an 
affectation which is displayed with most ostentation 
by those who have the greatest share of of self-conceit, 
and which only adds undeceiving falsehood to disgust- 
ing vanity. For you to deny the merit of your 
poems, would be arraigning the fixed opinion of the 
public. 

As the new edition of my View of Society is not yet 
ready, 1 have sent you the former edition, which 1 beg 
you will accept as a small mark of my esteem. It is 
sent by sea to the care of Mr. Creech ; and along with 
these four volumes lor yourself, 1 have also sent my 
Medical Sketches, in one volume, for my friend Mrs. 
Dunlop, of Dunlop: this, you will be so obliging as to 
trausmit, or, if you chance to pass soon by Dunlop, 
to give to her. 

I am happy to hear that your subscription is so am- 
ple, and shall rejoice at every piece of good fortune 
that befalls you, for you are a very great favourite In 
my family ; and this is a higher compliment than, per 
haps, you are aware of. It includes almost all the 
professions, and, of course, is a proof that your writ 
ings are adapted to various tastes and situations. My 
youngest son, who is at Winchester School, writes to 
me that he is translating some stanzas of your Hallow 
E'en into Latin verse, for the benefit of his comrades. 
This union of -taste partly proceeds, no doubt, from 
the cement of Scottish partiality, with which they are 
all somewhat tinctured. Even your translator, who 
left Scotland too early in life for recollection, is not 
Withou* it 



i remain, with great sincerity, 
Your obedient ser 



I No. XVII. 

TO THE EARL OF GLENCAIRN. 

Edinburgh, 1781. 
MY LORD, 

1 wanted to purchase a profile of your Lordship, 
which I was told was to he got in town ; but I am tru- 
ly sorry to see that a blundering painter has spoiled 
a " human face divine." The enclosed stanzas I in- 
tended to have written below a picture or profile of 
your Lordship, could I have been so happy as to pro- 
cure one with any thing of a likeness. 

As I will soon return to my shades, I wanted to 
have something like a material objeci for my gratitude j 
I wanted to have it in my power to say to a friend, 
There is my noble patron, my generous benefactor. 
Allow, me, my Lord, to publish these verses. I con- 
jure your Lordship, by the honest throe of gratitude, 
by the generous wish of benevolence, by all the powers 
and feelings which compose the magnanimous mind, 
do not deny me this petition.* I owe much to youi 
Lordship; and, what has not in some other instances 
always been the case with me, the weight of the obliga- 
tion is a pleasing load. I trust I have a heart as indt 
pendent as your Lordship's, than which I can say no 
thing more : And I would not be beholden to favours 
that would crucify my feelings. Your dignified cha- 
racter in life, and manner of supporting that charac- 
ter, are flattering to my pride ; and I would be jealous 
of the purity of my grateful attachment where 1 was 
under the patronage of one of the much-favoured sons 
of fortune. 

Almost every poet has celebrated his patrons, parti- 
cularly when they were names dear to fame, and il- 
lustrious in their country ; allow me, then, my 
Lord, if you think the verses have intrinsic merit, 
to teil the world bow much I have the honour to be, 
Your Lordship's highly indebted, 

and ever grateful humble servant. 



No. XVIII. 

TO THE EARL OF BUCHAN. 

MY LORD, 

The honour your Lordship has done me, by youi 
notice and advice in yours of the 1st instant, I shaj 
ever gratefully remember : 

" Traise from thy lips 'tis mine with joy to boast, 
They best can give it who deserve it most." 

Your Lordship touches the darling chord of nrf 
heart, when you advise me to fire my muse at Scot- 
tish story and Scottish scenes. I wish for nothing 
more than to make a leisurely pilgrimage through my 
native country : to sit and muse on those once hard- 
contended fields where Caledonia, rejoicing, saw her 
bloody lion boine through broken ranks to victory 
and fame; and catching the inspiration, to pour the 
deathless names in song. But, my Lord, in the 
midst of these enthusiastic reveries, a long-visaged, 
dry, moral-looking phantom strides across my imagina- 
tion, and pronounce these emphatic words : 

" I wisdom, dwell with prudence. Friend I do no; 
come to open the ill closed wounds of your follies and 
misfortunes, merely to give you pain ; I wish through 
these wounds to imprint a lasting lesson on your heart. 
I will not mention how many of my salutary advices 
you have despised; 1 have given you line upon line, 
and precept upon precept ; and while I was chalking 
out to you the straight way to wealth and character, 

* It does not appear that the Earl granted thu rft- 
|uest,nor have the verses alluded to been found among 



the MSS. E. 



LETTERS. 



the path, contemning me to my 4ace ; you know the 
consequences. It is not yet three months since home 
was so hot for you, that you were on the wing ior 
the western shore of the Atlantic, not to make a ior- 
tune, but to hide your misfortune. 

"Now that your dear-loved Scotia puts it in your 
power to return to the situation of your fore lathers, 
will you follow these Will-o'-Wisp meteors of fancy 
and whim, till they bring you ouce more to the brink 
of ruin? I grant that the utmost ground you can oc- 
cupy is but hall' a step from the veriest poverty ; bot 
etill it is half a step from it. If all that I can urge be 
ineffectual, let her who seldom calls to you in vain, let 
the call of pride, prevail with you. You know how 
you feel at the grip of ruthless oppression ; you know 
how you bear the galling sneer of contumelous great- 
ness. I hold you out the conveniences the comforts of 
life, independence and character, on the one hand ; I 
tender you servility, dependence, and wretchedness, 
outheother, I will not insult your understanding by 
bidding you make a choice.* " 

This, my Lord, is unanswerable. I must return to 
my humble station, and woo my rustic muse in my 
wonted way at the plough-tail. Still, my Lord, while 
the drops of life warm my heart, gratitude to that dear 
loved country in which 1 boast my birth, and gratitude 
to those her distinguished sous, who have honoured 
me so much with their patronage and approbation, 
shall while stealing through my humble shades, ever 
distend my bosom, and at times, as now, draw forth 
the swelling tear. 



No. XIX. 

Ext. Property in favour of Mr. Robert Burns, to erect 
and keep up a Headstone in memory of Poet Fer- 
gusson, 1787. 



Session-House within the Kirk of Cannongate, live 
twenty-second day of February, one thousand see en 
hundred and eighty-seven years. 

SEDERUNT OF THE MANAGERS OF THE 
KIRK AND KIRK-YARD FUNDS OF CAN- 
NONGATE. 

Which day, the treasurer to the said funds produced 
a letter from Mr. Robert Burns, of date the sixth cur- 
rent, which was read, and appointed to be engrossed 
in their sederunt-bouk, and of which letter the tenor 
follows : " To the Honourable Bailies of Cannongate, 
Edinburgh. Gentlemen, I am sorry to be told, that 
the remains of Robert Fergusson, the so justly cele- 
brated poet, a man whose talents, for ages to come, 
will do honour to our Caledonian name, lie in your 
ehurch-yard, among the ignoble dead, uuuoticed and 
unknown. 

*' Some memorial to direct the steps of the lovers 
of Scottish Song, when they wish to 6lied a tear, 
over the ' narrow house' of the bard who is no more, 
is surely a tribute due to Fergusson'* memory ; a 
tribute I wish to have the honour of paying. 

"I petition you, then, gentlemen, to permit me to 
lay a simple stone over his revered ashes, to remain an 
unalienable property to his deathless fame. 1 have the 
honour to be, Gentlemen, your very obedient servant, 
(sic subscribitur,) 

"ROBERT BURNS." 

Thereafter the said managers, in consideration of 
the laudable and disinterested motion of Mr. Hums, 
and the propriety of his request, did and hereby do, 

* Copied from the Bee, vol. ii. p. 319, and compared 
with the Author's MSS. 



ith audacious effrontery, you have zig-zagged across , unanimously, grant power and liberty to the said Ro- 
bert Burns to erecta headstone at the grave of the said 
Robert Fergusson, and to keep up and preserve tba 
same to his memory in all lime coming. Extracted 
forth of the records of the managers, by 

WILLIAM SI ROT, Clerk. 



No. XX. 

MY DEAR SIR, 

You may think, and too justly, that I am a selfish, 
ungrateful fellow, having received so many repeated 
instances of kindness from you, and yet never putting 
pen to paperto say— thank you : but if you knew what 
a devil of a life my conscience has led me on that ac- 
count, your good heart would think yourself too much 
avenged. By the by, there is nothing in the whole 
frame of man which seems to me so unaccountable as 
that thing called conscience. Had the troublesome, 
yelping cur powers efficient to prevent a mischief, he 
might be of use ; but at the beginning of the business, 
his feeble efforts are to the workings of passion as the 
infant frosts ot an autumnal morning to the unclouded 
fervour of the rising sun : ami no sooner are the tu- 
multuous doings of the wicked deed over, than, amidst 
the bitter native consequences of folly in the very vor- 
tex of our horrors, up starts conscience, and harrows 
us with the feelings of the d"****. 

I have enclosed you, by way of expiation, some 
verse and prose, that if they nierit a place in your 
truly entertaining miscellany, you are welcome to. 
The prose extract is literally as Mr. Sprot sent 



The Inscription of the stone is as follows ; 
HERE LrES 

ROBERT FERGUSSON, POET. 

Born, September 5th, 1751— Died, 16th October, 1774. 

No sculptur'd Marble here, nor pompous lay, 
" No storied urn nor animated bust j" 

This simple stone directs pale Scotia's way 
To pourher sorrows o'er her ir'oel's dust. 

On the other side of the stone is as follows : 

" Cy special grant of the Managers to Robert 
Burns, who erected this stone, this burial place is 
to remain for ever sacred to the memory of Robert 
Fergusson." 



No. XXI. 

Extract of a Letter from . 

8th March, 1787. 
I am truly happy to know that you have found a 
friend in * * * * * ; his patronage of you does 
him great honour, lie is truly a good man ; by lar 
the best 1 ever knew, or, perhaps, ever shall know, in 
this world. But I must not sueak all 1 think of him, 
lest I should be thought partial. 

So you have obtained liberty from the magistrates to 
erect a stone over Fergusson s'grave ? 1 do not doubt 
it; such things have been, as Shakspeare says, " in 
the olden time :" 

" The poet's fate is here in emblem shown, 
He ask'dfor bread, and he receiv'da Btoue." 

It is, I believe, upon poor Butler's tomb that thto is 
written. But how many brothers of i'ernassus, as wall 



LETTERS. 



M poor Butler, and poor Furgusson, have asked for 
brsad, and been served the same sauce I 

The magistrates gave you liberty, did they? O 
generous magistrates ! ••«.**••« cele- 
crated over the three kingdoms for his public spirit, 
gives a poor poet liberty to raise a tomb to a poor poet 's 
memory ! most gracious I * * * * once upon a 
time gave that same poet the mighty sum of eighteen 
pence for a copy of his works. But then it must be 
considered that the poet was at that time absolutely 
starving, and besought his aid with. all the earnestness 
cf hunger; and over and above, he received a * * * * 
worth, at least one third of the value, in exchange, but 
•which, I believe, the poet afterwards very ungratefully 
•tpunged. 

Next week I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you 
n Edinburgh ; and as my stay will be for eight to ten 
days, I wish you or * * * * would take a snug well- 
aired bed-room for me, where I may have the plea 
sure of seeing you over a morning cup of tea. But, by 
all accounts, it will be a matter of some difficulty to 
see you at all, unless your company is bespoke a week 
before-hand. There is a rumour here concerning 

your great intimacy with the Dutchess of , and 

other ladies of distinction. I am really told that 
" cards to invite fly by thousands each night;" and, 
if you had one, I suppose there would also be " bribes 
to your old secretary." It seems you are resolved to 
make hay while the sun shines, and avoid, if possible, 
the fate of poor Fergusson, ***** Quesrenda pe- 
cunia primum est, virtus post nummos, is a good 
maxim to thrive by ; you seemed to despise it while in 
Ihjs country ; but probably some philosopher in Edin- 
burgh has taught you better sense. 

Pray, are you yet engraving as well as printing ! — 
Are you yet seized 

" With itch of picture in the front, 
With bays and wicked rhyme upon't ?" 

But I must give up this trifling, and attend to 
matters that more concern myself; so, as the Aber- 
deen wit says, adieu dryly, we sal drink phan we 
meet.* 



XXII. 

TO MRS. DTJNLOP. 

Edinburgh, March 22, 1787. 
MADAM, 

I read your letter with watery eyes. A little, very 
little while ago, I had scarce a friend but the stub- 
bornpride of my own bosom ; now 1 am distinguished, 

Fatronized, befriended by you. Your friendly advices, 
will not give them the cold name of criticisms, I re- 
ceive with reverence. 1 have made some small altera- 
tions in what I before had printed. I have the advice 
of some very judicious friends among the literati here, 
but with them 1 sometimes find it necessary to claim 
the privilege of thinking fur myself, The noble Earl 
of Glencaim, to whom I owe more than to any rr 

* The above extract is from a letter of one of the 
ablest of our Poet's correspondents, which contains 
some interesting anecdotes of Fergnsson, that we 
should have been happy to have inserted, if they could 
have been authenticated. The writer is mistaken 
supposing the magistrates of Edinburgh had any Bha 
in ihe transaction respecting the monument erected 
for Fergnsson by our bard ; this, it is evident, passed 
between Burns and the Kirk-Session of the Cauongate. 
Neither at Edinburgh nor any where else, do magis 
tratcs usually trouble themselves to inquire how the 
bouse of a poor poet is furnished, or how his grave is 
adorned. E, 



does me the honour of giving me hii strictures; Ma 
hints, with respect to impropriety or indelicacy, I fol- 
low implicitly. 

You kindly interest yourself in my future yiaws 
and prospects ; there I can give you no light :— U is 
all 

" Dark as was chaos, ere the infant sun 
Was roll'd together, or had try'd his beams 
Athwart the gloom profound." 

The appellation of a Scottish bard is by far the high- 
est pride ; to continue to deserve it, is my most exalt- 
ed ambition. Scottish scenes and Scottish story are 
the themes I could wish to sing. I have no dearer aim 
han to have it in my power, unplagued with the rou- 
tine of business, for, which, heaven knows ! I am unfit 
enough, to make leisurely pilgrimages through Caledo- 
nia ; to sit on the field of her battles ; to wander on the 
romantic banks of her rivets ; and to muse by the 
stately towers or venerable ruins, once the honoured 
abodes of her heroes. 

But these are all Utopian thoughts : I have dallied 
long enough with life ; 'tis time to be in earnest. 1 
have a fond, an aged mother to care for; and some 
other bosom ties perhaps equally tender. 

Where the individual only suffers by the conse- 
quences of his own thoughtlessness, indolence, or folly, 
he may be excusable ; nay, shining abilities, and some 
of the nobler virtues may half sanctify a heedless 
character : but where God and nature have intrusted 
the welfare of others to his care, where the trust is 
sacred, and the ties are dear, that man must be far 
gone in selfishness, or strangely lost to reflection, 
whom these connexions will not rouse to exertion. 

I guess that I shall clear betweer. two and three hun- 
dred pounds by my authorship : with that sum 1 in- 
tend, so far as I may be said to have any intention, to 
return to my old acquaintance, the plough ; and if I 
can meet with a lease by which I can live, to com- 
mence farmer. I do not intend to give up poetry ; be- 
ing bred to labour secures me independence ; and the 
muses are my chief, sometimes have been my only 
employment. If my practice second my resolution,. I 
shall have principally at heart the serious business of 
life; but, while following my plough, or building up 
my shocks, I shall cast a leisure glance to that dear, 
that only feature of my character, -which gave me the 
notice of my country, and the patronage of a Wal- 
lace. 

Thus, honoured Madam, I have given you the bard, 
his situation, and his views, native as they are in his 
own bost.n. 



XXIII. 

TO THE SAME. 

Edinburgh, loth April, 1787. 
MADAM, 

There is an affectation of gratitude which I dislike. 
The periods of Johnson and the pauses of Sterne, may 
hide a selfish heart. For my part, Madam, I trust I 
have too much piide for servility, and too little pru- 
dence for selfishness. I have this moment broken open 
jour letter, but 

" Rude am I in speech 
And therefore little can I grace my cause 
In speaking for myself" — 

so I shall not trouble vou with anv fine speeches and 
hunted figures. 1 shall just lay my hand on my heart, 
and say, I hope I shall ever have the truest, the warm- 
est, sense of your goodness. 



LETTERS. 



1 come abroad in print for certain on Wednesday 
Four orders I shall punctually attend to ; only, by the 
way, I niu st tell you that I was paid before for Dr. 
Moore* aid Miss W.'s copies, through the medium of 
Commissioner Cochrane in this place ; but that we can 
settle when I have the honour of waiting on you. 

Dr Smith* was just gone to London the morning 
before I received your letter to him. 



No. XXIV. 

TO DR. MOORE. 

Edinburgh, 23d April, 1787. 
I received the books, and sent the one you mentioned 
to Mrs. Dunlop. I am ill-skilled in beating the coverts 
of imagination for metaphors of gratitude. I thank 
you, Sir, for the honour you have done me ; and to 
my latest hour will warmly remember it. To be high- 
ly pleased with your book, is what I have in common 
with the world ; but to regard these volumes as a mark 
of the author's friendly esteem, is a still more supreme 
gratification. 

I leave Edinburgh in the course of ten days or a 
fortnight ; and, alter a few pilgrimages over some of 
the classic ground of Caledonia, Cowden Knoioes, 
Banks of Yarrow, Tweed, &c. I shall return to my 
rural shades, in all likelihood never more to quit them". 
I have formed many intimacies and friendships here, 
hut I am afraid they are all of too tender a construc- 
tion to bear carriage a hundred and fifty mites. To 
the rich, the great, the fashionable, the polite, 1 have 
no equivalent to offer ; and I am afraid my meteor ap- 
pearance will by no means entitle me to a settled cor- 
respondence with any of you, who are the permanent 
lights of genius and literature. 

My most respectful compliments to Mis3 W. If 
once this tangent flight of mine were over, and I were 
returned to my wonted leisurely motion in my old cir- 
cle, I may probably endeavour to return her poetic 
compliment in kind. 



No. XXV. 

EXTRACT OF A LETTER TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

Edinburgh, 30th April, 1787. 
——Your criticisms, Madam, I understand very 
well, and could have wished to have pleased you bet- 
ter. You are right in your guess that I am not very 
amenable to counsel. Poets, much my superiors, have 
so flattered those who possessed the adventitious; qual- 
ities of wealth and power, that \ am determined to flat- 
ter no created being either iu ptose or verse. 

I set as little by princes, lords, clergy, critics, &c. 
as all these respective gentry do by my hardship. I 
know what 1 may expect from the world by and by — 
illiberal abuse, and perhaps contemptuous neglect. 

I am happy, Madam, that some of my own favourite 
pieces are distinguished by your particular approba- 
tion. For my Dream, which has unfortunately incur- 
red your loyal displeasure, I hope in four weeks, or 
less, to have the honour of appearing at Dunlop, in its 
defence, in person. 



No. xxvr. 

TO THE REV. DR. HUGH BLAIR. 
Lawn-Market, Edinburgh, 3d May, 1737. 
REVEREND AND MUCH-RESPECT ED SIR, 

I leave Edinburgh to-morrow morning, but could BOt 
go without troubling you with half a line sincerely to 

* 4dam Smith, 



thank you for the kindness, patronage, and friendship 
you have shown me. I often felt the embarrassment 
of my singular situation ; drawn forth from the veriest 
shades of life to the glare of remark ; and honoured by 
the notice of those illustrious names of my country, 
whose works, while they are applauded to the end of 
time, will ever instruct and mend the heart. However 
the meteor-like novelty of my appearance in the world 
might attract notice, and honour me with the ac- 
quaintance ol the permanent lights of genius and liter- 
ature, those who are truly benefactors of the immortal 
nature of man ; I knew very well that my utmost 
merit was far unequal to the task of preserving that 
character when once the novelty was over. 1 have 
made up my mind, that abjse, or almost even neglect, 
will not surprise me in my quarters. 

I have sent you a proof impression of Beugo's work 
for me, done on India paper, as a trifling but sincere 
testimony with what heart-warm gratitude I am, &c. 



No. XXVII 



FROM DR. BLAIR. 

Argyle-Square, Edinburgh, ith May. 
DEAR SIR, . 

I was favoured thi3 forenoon with your very obliging 
letter, together with an impression of your portrait, 
for which I return you my best thanks. The success 
you have met with I do not think was beyond your 
merits ; and if I have had any small hand in con 
tributing to it, it gives me great pleasure. I know nc 
way in which literary persons, who are advanced irj 
years, can do more service to the world, than in for 
warding the efforts of rising genius, or bringing forth 
unknown merit from obscurity. I was the first person 
who brought out to the notice of the world, the poems 
of Ossian : first, by the Fragments of Ancient Poetry 
which I published, and afterwards by my setting on 
foot the undertaking for collecting and publishing the 
Works of Ossian ; and I have always considered 
this as a meritorious action of my life. 

Your situation, as you say, was indeed very singu- 
lar ; and, in being brought out all at once from the 
shades of deepest privacy, to so great a share of public 
notice and observation, you had to stand a severe trial. 
I am happy that you have stood it so well; and, as 
far as 1 have known or heard, though in the midst of 
many temptations, without reproach to your character 
and behaviour. 

You are now, I presume, to retire to a more private 
walk of life ; and, I trust, will conduct yourself there, 
with industry, prudence, and honour. You have 
laid the foundation for just public esteem. In the 
midst of those employments, which your situation will 
render proper, you will not, I hope, neglect to promote 
that esteem, by cultivating your genius, and attend- 
ing to such productions of it as may raise your char- 
acter still higher. At the same time, be not in too 
great a haste to come forward. Take time and leisure 
to improve and mature your talents ; for on any sec- 
ond production you give the world, your fate, as a poet, 
will very much depend. There is, no doubt, a gloss 
of novelty which time wears off. As you very proper- 
ly hint yourself, you are not to be surprised, if, in 
your rural retreat, you do not find yourself surrounded 
with that glare of notice and applause which here 
shone upon you. No man can be a good poet, without 
being somewhat of a philosopher. He must lay his 
account, that any one, who exposes himself to public 
observation, will occasionally meet with the attacks 
of illiberal censure, which it is always best to overlook 
and despise. He will be inclined sometimes to court 
retreat, and to disappear from public view. He will 
not affect to shine always, that he may at propersea- 
soiis come forth with more advantage and energy. He 
will not think himself neglected, if he be not always 
praised. I have taken the liberty, you see, of an old 
man, to give advice and make reflections which your 
own good sense will, I dare say, render unnecessary 



LETTERS. 



n 



A* you mention your being just about to leave town, 
you are going, I should suppose, to Dumfries-shire, to 
look at some of Mr. Miller's farms. I heartily wish 
the offers to be made you there may answer, as I am 
persuaded you will not easily find a more generous and 
better-hearted proprietor to live under, than Mr. Mil- 
ler. When you return, if you come this way, I will 
be happy to see you, and to know concerning your fu- 
ture plans of life. You will find me by the 22d of this 
month, net in my house in Argyle-square, but at a 
country-house at Hestwlrig, about a mile east from Ed- 
inburgh, near the Musselburgh road. Wishing you all 
success and prosperity, I am, with real regard and es- 
teem, 

Dear Sir, 

Yours sincerely, 

HUGH BLAIR. 



No. XXVIII. 



FROM DR. MOORE. 

Clifford-Street, May, 28, 1787. 
DEAR SIR, 

I had the pleasure of your letter by Mr. Creech, and 
soon after he sent me the new edition of your poems. 
You seem to think it incumbent on you to send to 
each subscriber a number of copies proportionate to 
his subscription-money ; but you may depend upon it, 
few subscribers expect more than one copy, whatever 
they subscribed. 1 must inform you, however, that I 
took twelve copies for those subscribers for whose mo- 
ney you were so accurate as to send me a receipt ; 
and Lord Eglinton told me he had sent for six copies 
for himself, as he wished to give five of them as pres- 
ents. 

Some of the poems you have added in this last edi- 
tion are very beautiful, particularly the Winter Night, 
the Address to Edinburgh, Green giow the Rashes, 
and the two songs immediately following ; the latter 
of which is exquisite. By the way, I imagine you have 
a peculiar talent for such compositions, which you 
ought to indulge.'" No kind of poetry demands more 
delicacy or higher polishing. Horace is more admired 
on account of his Odes than all his other writings. 
But nothing now added is equal to your Vision, and 
Cotter's Saturday Night. In these are united fine 
imagery, natural and pathetic description, with sub- 
limity of language and thought. It is evident that you 
already possess a great variety of expression and com- 
mand of the English language, you ought, therefore, 
to deal more sparingly for the future in the provincial 
dialect : why should you, by using that, limit the num- 
ber of your admirers to those who understand the 
Scottish, when you can extend it to all persons of taste 
who understand the English language ? In my opin- 
ion you should plan some larger work than any you 
have as yet attempted. I mean, reflect upon some 
proper subject, and arrange the plan in your mind, 
withojt beginning to execute any part of it till you 
have studied most of the best English poets, and read 
a little more of history. The Greek and Roman sto- 
ries you can read in some abridgment, and soon be- 
come mas'.er of the most briiliant facts, which must 
highly delight a poetical mind. You should also, and 
very soon may, become master of the heathen mythol- 
ogy, to which there are everlasting allusions in all the 
poets, and which in itself is charmingly fanciful. What 
will require to be studied with more attention, is mod- 
ern history ; that is, the history of France and Great 
Britain, from the beginning of Henry the Seventh's 
reign. I know very well you have a mind capable of 
attaining knowledge by a shorter process than is com 
monly used, and I am certain you are capable of ma- 
king a better use of it, when attained, than is generally 
done. 

* The poems subsequently composed will bear testi- 
mony to the accuracy of Dr. Moore's judgment. 



I beg you will not give yourself the trouble of writing 
to me when it is inconvenient, and make no apology 
when you do write, for having postponed it ; be assu- 
red of this, however, that I shall always be happy to 

hear from you. I think my friend Mr. told me 

that you had some poems in manuscript by you, of a 
satirical and humorous nature, (in which, by the way, 
I think you very strong,) which your prudent friends 
prevailed on you to omit ; particularly one called 
Somebotly's Confession ; if you will intrust me with 
a sight of any of these, I will pawn my word to give no 
copies, and will be obliged to you for a perusal of them. 

I understand you intend to take a farm, and make 
the useful and respectable business of husbandry your 
chief occupation ; this, I hope, will not prevent your 
making occasional addresses to tne nine ladies who 
have snown you such favour, one of whom visited yon 
in the auld clay i/iggin. Virgil, before you, proved to 
the world, that there is nothing in the business ol hus- 
bandry inimical to poetry; and 1 sincerely hope that 
you may aftord an example of a good poet being a suc- 
cessful farmer. I fear it will not be in my power to 
visit Scotland thisseason ; when I do, I'll endeavourto 
find you out, for I heartily wish to see and converse 
with you. If ever your occasions call you to this place, 
I make no doubt of your paying me a visit, and you 
may depend on a very cordial welcome from this fam- 
ily. 

I am, dear Sir, 

Your friend and obedient servant, 
J. MOORE. 



No. XXIX. 

TO MR. WALKER, 

BLAIR OP ATHOLE. 

Inverness, 5th September, 1787. 
MY DEAR SIR, 

I have just time to write the foregoing,* and to tell 
you that it was (at least most part of it,) the effusion 
of a hall-hour I 3pent at Bruar. I do net mean it was 
extempore, for I have endeavoured to brush it up as 

well as Mr. N >g chat, and the jogging of the 

chaise, would allow. It eases my heart a good deal, 
as rhyme is the coin with which a poet pays his debts 
of honour or gratitude. What I owe to the noble fam- 
ily of Athole, of the first kind, I shall ever proudly 
boast ; what I owe of the last, so help me God in my 
hour of need ! I shall never forget. 

The " little angel band I" I declare I prayed fbf 
them very sincerely to day at the Fall of Fyers 1 
shall never forget the fine family-piece 1 saw at Blair ; 
the amiable, the truly noble Dutchess, with her smi- 
ling little seraph in her lap, at the head of the table ; 
the lovely " olive plants," as the Hebrew bard finely 
says, round the happy mother ; the beautiful Mrs. 
G-— ; the lovely, sweet Miss C., &c. I wish I bad 
the powers of Guido to do them justice. My Lord 
Duke's kind hospitality— markedly kind indeed ! Mr. 
G. of F — 's charms of conversation — Sir W. M— 'g 
friendship. In short, the recollection of all that po- 
lite, agreeable company, raises an honest glow in my 
bosom. 



No. XXX. 

TO MR. GILBERT BURNS. 

Edinburgh, Ylth Sept. 1787 
MY DEAR BROTHER, 

I arrived here safe yesterday evening, after a tour of 
twenty-two days, and travelling near six hundred 

The humble Petition of Bruar Water to the Duka 

of Athole. See Poems, p. 73. 



72 



LETTERS. 



mllM windings included. My farthest stretch wa3 
about ten miles beyond Inverness. I went through 
the heart of the Highlands, by Crieff, Taymouth, the 
famous seat of the Lord Breadalbane, down tlie Tay, 
among cascades and Dmidical circles of stones, to 
Dunkeld.a seat of the Duke of Athole ; thence cross 
Tay, and up one of his tributary streams to Blair of 
Athole, another of the Duke's seats, where I had the 
honour of spending nearly two days with his Grace 
and family ; thence many miles through a wild coun- 
try, among cliffs gray with eternal snows, and gloomy 
savage glens, till I crossed Spey and went down the 
stream through Strathspey, so famous in Scottish mu- 
sic, Badenoch, &c. till 1 reached Grant Castle, where 
1 spent half a day with Sir James Giant and family ; 
and then crossed the country for Fort George, but 
called by the way at Cawdor, the ancient seat of Mac- 
beth ; there I saw the identical bed in which, tradition 
says, King Duncan was murdered ; lastly, from Fort 
George to Inverness. 

I returned by the coast, through Nairn, Forres, and 
eo on, to Aberdeen ; thence to Stonehive, where James 
Burness, from Montrose, met me, by appointment. I 
spent two days among our relations, and found our 
aunts, Jean and Isabel, still a'dve, and hale old women. 
John Caird, though born the same year with our fa- 
ther, walks as vigorously as I can ; they have had sev- 
eral letters from his son in New. York. William 
Brand is likewise a stout old fellow ; but further par- 
ticulars I delay till I see you, which will be in two or 
three weeks. The rest of my stages are not worth re- 
hearsing ; warm as I was from Ossian's country, 
where I had seen his very grave, what cared I for fish- 
ing towns or fertile carses ? I slept at the famous bro- 
die of Brodie's one night, and dined at Gordon Castle 
next day with the Duke, Dutchess, and family. I am 
thinking tn cause my old mare to meet me, by means of 
John Ronald, at Glasgow . but you shall hear farther 
from me before I leave. Edinburgh. My duty, and 
many compliments, from the north, to my mother, and 
my brotherly compliments to the rest. 1 have been try- 
ing for a birth for William, but am not likely to be 
successful. Farewell I 



No. XXXI. 

FROM MR. R**«". 

Ochlertyre, 22d October, 1787. 
SIR, 

'Twas only yesterday I got Colonel Edmondstoune's 
answer, thai neither the words of Down the Burn Da- 
vie, nor Bainlie Davie, (I forgot which you mention- 
ed,) were written by Colonel G. Crawford. Next time 
I meet him, I will inquire about his cousins poetical 
talents. 

Enclosed are the inscriptions you requested, and a 
letter to Mr. Young, whose company and musical 
talents will, I am persuaded, be a feast to you.* No- 

* These Inscriptions, so much admired by Burns, 
are as follows : 

WRITTEN IN 1768. 
For the SaHctum* of Ochlertyre. 
Salubritatis voluptatisque causa, 
HocSalictum, 
Paludem olim infidam, 
Miiii meisque desicco et exorno. 



Silvulas inter naseentes reptandi, 
A pi urn que laboras suspiciendi, 
Fruor. 
Hie, si fazit Deus, opt. max. 

Salictum— -Grove of Willows. Willow-ground. 



body can give yon better hints, as to your prestnt 
plan than he. Receive also Omeron Cameron, which 
seemed to make such a deep impression on your im«r 
gmation, that I am not without hopes it will beget 
something to delight the public in due time ; and, no 
doubt, the circumstances of this little tale might be 
varied or extended, so as to make part of a pastoral 
comedy. Age or wounds might have kept Omeron at 
home, whilst his countrymen were in the field. His 
station may be somewhat varied, without losing his 
simplicity and kindness. * * * A group of charac- 
ters, male and female, connected with the plot, might 
be formed from his family or some neighbouring one of 
rank. It is not indispensable that the guest should be 
a man of high station ; nor is thei political quarrel in 
which he is engaged, of much importance, unless it 
call forth the exercise of generosity and faithfulness, 
grafted on patriarchal hospitality. To introduce state- 
affairs, Would raise the style above comedy ; though 
a small spice of them would season the converse of 
swains. Upon this head I cannot say more than to 
recommend the study of the character of Eurnseus ia 

Prope hunc fontem pellucidum, 
Cum quodam juventutis amico superstite, 
Saepe conquiescam, senex, 
Coulentus mudicis, moeque latus ! 
Sin aliter— 
.fEvique paululum supersit, 
Vos silvulee, et amici, 
Caste* aque amccna, 
Valete, diuque Uetamini 1 

ENGLISHED. 
To improve both air and soil, 
I drain and decorate this plantation of willows 
Which was lately an unprofitable morass. 
Here, far from noise and strife, 
I love to wander, 
Now fondly marking the progress of my trees 
Now studying the bee, its arts and manners. 
Here, if it pleases Almighty God, 
May I often rest in the evening of life, 

Near that transparrent fountain, 
With some surviving (riend of my youth ; 

Contented with a competency, 

And happy with my lot. 
If vain these humble wishes, 
And life draw me near a close, 

Ye trees and friends, 
And whatever else is dear, 
Farewell I and long may ye flourish. 



Above the door of the house. 

WRITTEN IN 1775. 

Mihi meisque utinam coining 

Prope Taichi marginem, 

Avito in Agello, 

Bene vivere fausteque raori I 

ENGLISHED. 

On the banks of the Teith, 

In the small but sweet inheritance 

Of my fathers, 

May I and mine live in peace 

And die in joyful hope ! 

These inscriptions, and the translations, arc in Um 
hand-writing ol Mr. Ramsay. 



LETTERS. 



73 



U»« Odyssey, which, in Mr. Pope's translation, is an 
exquisite aud invaluable drawing from nature, that 
Would suit some of our country Elders of the present 
day. 

There must be love in the plot, and a happy discove- 
ry ; and peace and pardon may be the reward of hos- 
pitality, and honest attachment to misguided princi- 
ples. When you have once thought of a plot, and 
brought the story iutn form, Doctor Blacklock, or Mr. 
IJ. Mackenzie, may be useful in dividing it into ac 
and scenes ; for in these matters Qtie must pay some 
attention to certain rules of the drama. These you 
could afterwards fill up at your leisure. But, whilst 
1 presume to give a few weli-meant hints, let me ad- 
v.se you to study the spirt of my namesake's dialogue,* 
which is natural without being low; and, under the 
trainmtls of verse, is such as country-people, in these 
situations, speak every day. You have only to bring 
down your strain a very little. A great plan, such as 
this, would concentre all your ideas, which facilitates 
the execution, aud makes it a part of one's pleasure. 

I approve of your plan of retiring from din and dissi- 
pation 10 a farm of very moderate size, suAicie.nl to find 
exercise for mind and body, but not so great as to ab- 
sorb better tilings. Aud if some intellectual pursuit 
be well chosen and steadily pursued, it will be more 
lucrative than most farms, in this age of rapid improve- 
ment. 

Upon this subject, as your well-wisher and admirer, 
permit me to go a step further. Let those bright tal- 
ents which the Almighty has bestowed on you, be 
henceforth employed to the noble purpose cfsuppoi t- 
ingthe cause of truth and virtue. An imagination so 
varied and forcible as yours, may do this in many dif- 
ferent modes : nor is it necessary to be always serious, 
which you have to good purpose ; good morals may be 
recommended in a comedy, or even in a song. Great 
allowances are due to the heat and inexperience of 
youth;— and few poets can boast like Thomson, of 
never having written a line, which, dying, they would 
wish to blot. In particular 1 wish to keep clear of the 
thorny walks of satire, which makes a man a hundred 
enemies for one friend, and is doubly dangerous when 
one is supposed to extend the slips and weaknesses ot 
individuals to their sect or party. About modes of 
faith, serious and excellent men have always differed ; 
and there are certain curious questions, which may af- 
ford scope to men of metaphysical heads, but seldom 
mend the heart or temper. Whilst these points are 
beyond human ken, it is sufficient that all our sects 
concur in their views of morals. You will forgive me 
for these hints. 

Well ! what think you of good lady Clackmannan ?+ 
It is a pity she is so deaf, and speaks so indistinctly. 
Her house is a specimen of the mansions of ourgeutry 
of the last age, when hospitality and elevation of mind 
were conspicuous amid plain fare and plain furni- 
ture. I shall be glad to hear from you at times, if it 
were no more than to show that you take the effusions 
of an obscure man like me in good part. 1 beg my best 
respects to Dr. and Mrs. Blacklock. J 
And am, Sir, 

Your most obedient, humble servant, 

J. RAMSAY. 

* Allan Ramsay, in the Gentle Shepherd. E. 

t Mrs. Bruce of Clackmannan. E. 

\ TALE OF OMERON CAMERON. 

In one of the wars betwixt the crown of Scotland 
and the Lords of the Isles, Alexander Stewart, Earl 
cf Mar (a distinguished character in the fifteenth cen- 
tury,) and Donald Stewart, Earl of Caithness, had 
the command of the royal army. They marched into 
Lochaher, with a view of attacking a body of the M'- 
Dcnalds, commanded by Donald Balloch, and posted 
wpon an arm of the sea which intersects that country 



No. XXXII. 



FROM MR. J. RAMSAY, TO THE 

REVEREND W. YOUNG, AT ERSKINE. 

Ochterture, 22d October, 1787. 
DEAR SIR, 

Allow me to introduce Mr. Burns, whose poems, 1 
dare say, have given you much pleasure. Upon a per- 
sonal acquaintance, I doubt not, you will relish the 
man as much as his works, in which there is a rich 
vein of intellectual ore. lie has heard some of our 
Highland Luinags or songs played, which delighted 

Having timely intelligence of their approach, the in- 
surgents got off precipitately to the opposite shore in 
their curraghs, or boats covered with skins. The 
King's troops encamped in full security ; but the M'- 
Donalds, returned about miohiight, surprised them, 
killed the Earl of Caithness, and Uistroyed or dispers- 
ed the whole army. 

The Earl of Mar escaped in the dark, without any 
attendants, aud made for the more hilly part of the 
country. In the course of his fiight he came to the 
house of a poor man, whose name was Omeron 
Cameron. The landlord welcomed his guest with the 
utmost kindness ; but, as there was no meat in the 
house, he told his wife he would directly kill Moal 
Adah,* to feed the stranger. ,: Kill our only cow!" 
said she, "our own and our little children's principal 
support !" More attentive, however, to the present 
call lor hospitality than the remonstrances of hiswife, 
or the future exigencies of his family, he killed the 
cow. The best and tenderest parts were immediately 
roasted before the fire, and plenty of innirich, or High- 
land soup, prepared '.o conclude their meal. Tho 
whole family, and tueir guest ate heartily, and the 
evening was spent, as usual, in telling tales and sing, 
ing songs besides a cheerful fire. Bed-time came • 
Omeron brushed the hearth, spread the cow-hide upon 
it, and desired the stranger to lie down. The earl 
wrapped his plaid about him, and slept soundly on th* 
hide, whilst the family betook themselves to rest in a 
corner of the same room. 

Next morning they had a plentiful breakfast, and at 
his departure his guest asked Cameron, if he knew 
whom he had entertained? "You may probably," 
answered he, " be one of the king's officers ; but who- 
ever you are, you came here in distress, and here it 
was my duty to protect you. To what my cottage af- 
forded you was most welcome. " Your guest, then," 
replied the other, " is the Earl of Mar ; and if hereaf- 
ter you fall into any misfortune, fail uot to come to the 
castle of Kildrummie." " My blessing be with you 1 
noble stranger," said Omeron ; " If I am ever in dis- 

ess you shall soon see me." 

The Royal army was soon after re-assembled, and 
the insurgents finding themselves unable to make head 
against it, dispersed. The M'Donalds, however, got 
notice that Omeron had been the Earl's host, and for 
ced him to fly the country. He came with his wife and 
children to the gate of Kildrummie castle, and required 
admittance with a confidence which hardly correspond- 

* Maol Odhar t. e. the orown hcrnxofl mw , 



n 



LETTERS. 



him so much that heha3 made words to one or two of 
them, which will render these more popular. As lie 
his thought of being in your quarter, I am persuaded 
you will not think it labour lost to indulge the poet of 
nature with a sample of.those sweet, artless melodies, 
which only want to be married (in Milton's phrase) 
to congenial words. I wish we could conjure up the 
ghost of Joseph M'D. to infuse into our bard a portion 
of his enthusiasm for those neglected airs, which do nol 
suit the fastidious musicians of the present hour. But 
if it be true that Corelli (whom I looked on as the Ho- 
mer of music) is out. of date, it is no proof of their 
taste ; — this, however, is going out of my province. 
You can show Mr. Burns the manner of singing i tie 
same Luinags ; and, if he can humour it in xvords, I 
do not despair of seeing one of them sung upon the 
stage, in the original style, round a napkin. 

I am very sorry we are likely, to meet so seldom in 
his neighbourhood. It is one of the greatest draw- 
lacks that attends obscurity, that one has so few op- 
portunities of cultivating acquaintances at a distance, 
hope, however, sometime or other to have the plea- 
sure of beating up your quarters at Erskine, and of 
nauling you away to Paisley, &c. ; meanwhile i 
beg to be remembered to Messrs. Bougand Mylne. 

If Mr. B. goes by , give him a billet on our 

friend, Mr. Stuart, who, I presume, does not dread the 
frowns of his diocesan. 
I am, Dear Sir, 

Your most obedient, humble servant, 
J. RAMSAY. 



No. XXXIII. 

FROM MR. RAMSAY 

TO DR. BLACKLOCK. 

Ochlertyrc, October 27, 1787. 
DEAR SIR, 

I received yours by Mr. Burns, and give you many 
thanks for giving me an opportunity of conversing with 
a man of his calibre. He will, I doubt nut, let yon 
know what passed between us on the subject of my 
hints, to which 1 have made additions in a letter I sent 
t'other day to your care. 



You may tell Mr. Burns, when yuu see him, that 
Colonel Edmondstoune told me t'other day, that his 
eousin, Colonel George Crawford, was no poet, but a 
great singer of songs ; but that his eldest brother Ro- 
bert (by a former marriage) bad a great turn that way, 
having written the words of The Busk aboon Tftuptair 
and Tweedside. That the Mary to whom it was ad- 
dressed was Mary Stewart, of the Castlemilk family, 
a terwards wife of Mr. John Relches. The Colonel 
neversaw Robert Crawford, though he was at his bu- 
rial fifty-five years ago. He was a pretty young man, 

ed with his habit and appearance. The porter told 
him rudely, his lordship was at dinner, and must not 
oe disturbed. He became noisy and importune: at 
last his name was announced. Upon hearing that it 
was Omeron Cameron, the Earl started from his seat, 
and is said to have exclaimed in a kind of poetic stan- 
za, " I was a night in his house, and fared most plen- 
tifully ; but naked of clothes was my bed. Omeron 
from Breugach i3 an excellent fellow." He was in- 
troduced into the great hall, and received with the 
welcome he deserved. Upon hearing how he had been 
treated, the Earl gave nim four merk land near the 
castle : and it is said there is still a number of Came- 
oi>8 descended of this Highland Eumieus. 



and had lived long in Prance. Lady Ankerville it Mj 
neice, and may know more of his poetical vein. An 
epitaph-monger like me might moralize upon the vani- 
ty of life, and the vanity of those sweet effusions. But 
1 have hardly room to offer my best compliments to 
Mrs. Blacklock, and am, 
Dear Doctor, 

Your most obedient, humble servant, 

J. RAMSAY. 



No. XXXIV 



PROM MR. JOHN MURDOCH. 

London, 28th October, 17S7. 
MV DEAR SIR, 

As my friend, Mr. Brown, is going from this place 
to your neighbourhood, I embrace the opportunity of 
telling you that I am yet alive, tolerably well, and al 
wau in expectation of being better. By the mucb- 
valued letters before me, I see that it was my duty to 
have given you this intelligence about three years and 
nine months ago : and have nothing to allege as an ex- 
cuse, but that we poor, busy, bustling bodies in Lon- 
don, are so much taken up with the various pursuits, in 
which we are here engaged, that we seldom think of 
any person, creature, place, or thing that is absent. 
But this is not altogether the case with me; fori often 
think of you. and Hornic and Russel, and an unfa'h- 
nmed depth, and lowan brunslane, all in the samo 
minute, although you and they are (as I suppose) at a 
considerable distance. I flatter myself, however, with 
the pleasing thought, that you and I shall meet some 
time or other either in Scotland or England. If ever 
you come hither, you will have the satisfaction of see- 
ing your poems relished by the Caledonians in Lon- 
don, full as much as they can be by those of Edin- 
burgh. We frequently repeat some of your verses in 
our Caledonian society ; and yon may believe, that I 
am not a little vain that I have had some share in cul- 
tivating such a genius. I was not absolutely certain 
that you were the author, till a few days ago, when I 
made a visit to Mrs. Hill, Dr. M'Comb's eldest daugh- 
ter, who lives in town, and who told me that she waa 
informed of it by a letter.from her sister in Edinburgh, 
with whom you had been in company when in that 
capital. 



Tray let me know if you have any intention of visit 
ing this huge, overgrown metropolis ? It would afford 
matter for a large poem. Here you wonld have an. op- 
portunity of indulging your vein in the study of man- 
kind, perhaps to a greater degree than in any city upon 
the face of the globe ; for the inhabitants of London, as 
you know, are a collection of all nations, kindreds, 
and tongues, who make it, as it were, the centre of 
their commerce. 



Present my respectful compliments to Mrs. Burns, 
to mv dear friend Gilbert, and all the rest of her amia- 
ble children. May the Father of the universe bless 
you all with those principles and dispositions that the 
best of parents took such uncommon pains to instil 
into your minds from your earliest infancy! May 
you live as he did ! if you do, you can never be unhap- 
py. I feel myself grow serious all at once, and affect- 
ed in a manner I cannot describe. 1 shall only add, 
that it is one of the greatest pleasures I promise myself 
before I die, that of seeing the family of a man whos» 
memory I revere more than that of any person that 
ever I was acquainted with. 
I am, my dear Friend, 

Yours sincerely, 

JOHN MURDOCH. 



LETTERS. 



75 



No. XXXV. 

FROM MR. 

Gordon Castle, 31st. Oct. 1787 
SIR, 

If you were not sensible of your fault as well as of 
your loss in leaving this place so suddenly, 1 should 
condemn yon to starve upon rauld kail for ae towmoitt 
at least ! and as for 'Dick Ldtine,* your travelling 
companion, without banning him wV a' the curses 
contained in your letter (which 'he'll no value a baw- 
bee,) 1 should give him naught but Sti-a'bogie cas- 
locks to chew tor-io? ouks, or ay until he wrs as sensi- 
ble of his error as you seem to be of yours. 



Your song I showed without producing the author ; 
and it was judged by the Dutchess to be the production 
of Or. Beatiie. I sent, a copy" of it, by her Grace's de 
sire, toa Mrs. M'Phersou in Badenoch, who sings Mo- 
rog- and all other Gaelic songs in great perfection. 1 
have recorded it likewise, by Lady Charlotte's desire, 
in a book belonging to her ladyship, where it is in 
Company with a great many other poems and verses, 
some. of the writers of which are no less eminent for 
their political than for their poetical abilities. When 
the Dutchess was informed that you were the author, 
she wished you had written the verses in Scotch. 

Any letter directed to me here will come to hand 
safely, and, if sent under the Duke's cover, it wilj 
likewise come free ; that is, as long as the Duke is in 
tliis country. 

I am, Sir, yours sincerely. 



No. XXX VI. 

FROM THE REVEREND JOHN SKINNER. 

Linskeart, Ut/i November, 1787. 
SIR, 

Your kind return, without date, but of post mark 
October 25lh, came to my hand only this day ; and, to 
testify ray punctuality to my poetic engagement, 1 sit 
down immediately to answer it in kind. Your ac- 
knowledgment of my poor but just encomiums on your 
surprising genius, and your opinion of my rhyming 
excursions, are both, I think, by far too high.' The 
difference between our two tracks of education and 
ways of life is entirely in your favour, and gives you 
the preference every manner of way. 1 know a classi- 
cal education will not create a versifying taste, but it 
mightily improves and assists it ; anil though, where 
both these meet, there may sometimes he ground for 
approbation, yet where taste appears single as it were, 
ami neither cramped nor supported by acquisition, 1 
will always sustain the justice of its prior claim of ap- 
plause. A small portion of taste, this way, I have 
had almost from childhood, especially in the old Scot- 
tish dialect ; and it is as old a. thing as I remember, 
my fondness for Christ-kirk o' the Green, which 1 had 
by heart, ere I was twelve years of age, and which, 
some years ago, I attempted to turn into Latin verse. 
While I was' young I dabbled a good deal in these 
things ; but, on getting' the black gown, 1 gave it pret- 
ty much over, till my daughters grew up, who, being 
all good singers, plagued me for words to some of their 
favourite tunes, and so extorted these effusions, which 
have made a public appearance beyond my expecta- 
tions, and contrary to my intentions, at the same time 
that I hope there is nothing to be found in them un- 
characteristic, or unbecoming the cloth which 1 would 
always wish to see respected. 

As to the assistance you purpose from me in the un- 
dertaking you are engaged in,| I am sorry I cannot 

• Mr. Nicol. 
t A plan of publishing a complete collection of Scot- 
ttefc Songs, &c, 



give it so far as I could wish, and you perhaps expect 
My daughters, who were my only intelligencers, are 
all fjaris-familiate, and the old woman their mother 
has lost that taste. There are two from my own pen, 
which I might give you, if worth the while. One to 
the old Scotch tune of Dumbarton's Drums. 

The othir perhaps you have met with, as your noble 
friend the Dutchess has, I' am told, heard of it. It 
was squeezed out of me by a brother parson in her 
neighbourhood, toaccoinmodate a new Highland reel for 
the Marquis's birth day, to the stanza of 

" Tune your fiddles, tune them sweetly," &c. 

If this last answer your purpose, you may have it 
from a brother of mine, Mr. James Skinner, writer iq 
Edinburgh, who, I believe, can give the music too. 

There is another humorous thing 1 have heard, said 
to be done by the Catholic priest Geddes, and which 
hit my taste'much : 

" There was a wee wifeikie, was coming frae the fair, 
Had gotten a little drapikie which bred her meikle care, 
It took upo' the wifie's heart, and she began to spew, 
And co' the wee wifeikie, 1 wish I binna fou, 

I wish, Sec. Src. 

I have heard of another new composition, by a youn* 
ploughman of my acquaintance, that lam vastly 
pleased with, to the tune of The Humours of Glen, 
which 1 fear won't do, as the music, I am told, is of 
Irish original. I have mentioned these, such as they 
are, to show my readiness to oblige you, and to con- 
tribute my mite, if 1 could, -to the patriotic work you 
have in hand, and which I wish all success to. You 
have only to notify your mind, and what you want of 
the above shall be sent you. 

Mean time, while you are thus publicly, I may say, 
employed, do net sheath your own proper and piercing 
Weapon. From what I have seen of yours already, I 
am inclined to hope for much good. One lesson of vir- 
tue and morality delivered in your amusing style, and 
from such as you, will operate more than dozens would 
do from such as me, who shall be told it is our employ- 
ment, and be never more minded : whereas, from a 
pen like yours, as being one of the many, what cornea 
will be admired. Admiration will produce regard, and 
regard will leave an impression, especially when eih 
ample goes along. 

Now binna saying I'm ill bred, 
Else, by my troth, I'll not be glad, 
For cadgers, ye have heard it said, 

And sic like fry, 
Maun ay be harland in their trade, 

And sae maun I. 

Wishing you, from my poet-pen, all success, and, ifi 
my other character, all happiness and heavenly direct 
tion, 

I remain, with esteem, 

Your Bincere friend, 

JOHN SKINNER 



No. XXXVII. 

FROM MRS. ROSE. 

Kilravock Castle, 30th Nov. 1787. 
SIR, 

I hope you will do me the justice to believe, that i* 
was no delect in gratitude for your punctual perform- 
ance of your parting promise, that has made me k> 
long in acknowledging it, but merely the difficulty I had 
in getting the Highland songs you wished to hare, ac- 
curately noted ; they are at last enclosed ; but how 
Bhall I convey along with them those graces they ae- 



7C 



LETTERS. 



quired from the melodious voice of one of the fair spir- 
its of the Hili of Kildrummie ! These I must leave to 
your imagination to supply. It has powers sufficient 
to transport you to her side, to recall her accents, and 
to make them still vibrate in the ears of memory. 
To her I am indebted for getting the enclosed notes. 
They are clothed with '■'thoughts that breathe, and 
words that burn." These, however, being in an un- 
known tongue to you, you must again have recourse to 
that same fertile imagination of yours to interpret 
them, and suppose a lover's description of the beauties 
of an adored mistress — Why did 1 say unknown ? the 
language of love is a universal one, that seems to have 
escaped the confusion of Babel, and to be understood 
by all nations. 

I rejoice to find that you were pleased with so many 
things, persons, and places, in your northern tour, 
because it leads me to hope you may be induced to re- 
visit them again. That the old castle of Kilravock, 
and its inhabitants, were amongst these, adds to my 
satisfaction. I am even vain enough to admit your 
very flattering application of the line of Addison's ; at 
any rate, allow me to believe, that " friendship will 
maintain the ground she has occupied in both our 
hearts," in spite of absence, and that when we do 
meet, it will be as acquaintance of a score years' 
standing ; and on this footing consider me as interest- 
ed in the future course of your fame so splendidly 
commenced. Any communications of the progress of 
your muse will be received with great gratitude, and 
the fire of your genius will have power to warm even 
U3, frozen sisters of the north. 

The fire sides of Kilravock and Kildrummie unite in 
cordial regards to you. When you incline to figure 
either in your idea, suppose some of us reading your 
poems, and some of us singing your songs, and my lit- 
tle Hugh looking at your picture, and you'll seldom be 
wrong. We remember Mr. Nicol with as much good 
will as we can do any body who hurried Mr. Burns 

Farewell, Sir : I can only contribute the widow's 
mite, to the esteem and admiration exciied by your 
merits and genius ; but this 1 give, as she did, with all 
nay heait— being sincerely yours. 

EL. ROSE. 



No. XXXVIII. 



TO THE EARL OP GLENCAIRN. 

MY LORD, 

I know your Lordship will disapprove of my ideas 
in a request I am going to make to you, but I have 
weighed, long and seriously weighed, my situation, my 
hope3, and turn of mind, and am fully fixed to my 
scheme, if I can possibly effectuate it. I wish to get 
into the Excise; 1 am told that your Lordship's in- 
terest will easily procure me the grant from the Com- 
missioners ; and your Lordship's patronage and »ood- 
ness, which have already rescued me from obscurity, 
wretchedness, and exile, embolden me to ask that in- 
terest, You have likewise put it in my power to save 
the little tie of home that sheltered an aged mother, 
two brothers, and three sisters, from destruction — 
There, my Lord, you have bound me over to the high- 
est gratitude. 

My brother's farm is but a wretched lease ; but I 
think he will probably weather out the remaining seven 
years of it ; and, after the assistance which I have giv- 
en, and will give him, to keep the family together, 1 
think, by my guess, I shall have rather better than two 
hundred pounds, and instead o! seeking what is almost 
impossible at present to find, a farm that I can cer- 
tainly live by, with so small a stock, I shell lodge this 
sum in a banking house, a sacred deposit, excepting 
only the calls of uncommon distress or necessitous old 
a«e; * * • 



These, My Lord, are my views; I hare resolved 
from the maturest deliberation ; and now I am fixed, 
I shall leave no stone unturned to carry my resold* 
into execution. Your Lordship's patronage is the 
strength of my hopes ; nor have 1 yet applied to any 
body else. Indeed my heart sinks within me at the 
idea of applying to any other of the Great who have 
honoured me with their countenance. 1 am ill with the 
impertinence of solicitation, and tremble nearly a» 
much at the thought of the cold promise, as the cold 
denial : but to your Lordship I have not only the hon- 
our, the comfort, but the pleasure of being 
Your Lordship's much obliged, 

And deeply indebted humble servant. 



No. XXXIX. 

TO DALRYMPLE, ESQ,. 

OF ORANGEFIELD. 

Edinburgh, 1787. 
DEAR SIR, 

I suppose the devil is so elated with his success with 
you, that he is determined, by a coupdumnin, to com- 
plete his purposes on you all at once, in making you a 
poet. I broke open your letter you sent me : hummed 
over the rhymes ; and as I saw they were extempore, 
said to myself, they were very well ; but when 1 saw 
at the bottom a name 1 shall ever value with grateful 
respect, "I gapit wide but naething spak." I was 
nearly as much struck as the friends of Job, of af- 
fliction-hearing memory, when they sat down with 
him seven days and seven nights, and spake not a 
word. 



I am naturally of a superstitious cast, and as soon 
as my wonder-scared imagination regained its con- 
sciousness, and resumed its functions, I cast about 
what this mania of yours might portend. My forebo- 
ding ideas had the wide stretch of possibility; and 
several events, great in their magnitude, and import- 
ant in their consequences, occurred to my fancy.— 
The downfall of the conclave, or the ci ushing of the 

cork rumps ; a ducal coronet to Lord George G , 

and the protestant interest, or St. Peter's keys, to 



You want to know how I come on. I am just in 
statuquo, or, not to insulta gentleman with my ; Latin, 
in "auld use and wont." The noble Earl of Glen- 
cairn took me by the hand to-day, and interested him- 
self in my concerns, with a goodness like that benevo- 
lent Being whose image he so richly bears. He is a 
stronger proof of the immortality of the soul than any 
that philosophy ever produced. A mind like his can 
never die. Let the worshipful squire H. L. or the rev- 
erend Mass J . M. go into their primitive nothing. At 
best, they are but ill-digested lumps of chaos, only one 
of them strongly tinged with bituminous particles and 
sulphureous effluvia. But my noble patron, eternal as 
the heroic swell of magnanimity, and the generous 
throb of benevolence, shalllook en with princely eye at 
" the war of elements, the wreck of matter, and tha 
crush of worlds." 



No. XL. 

1*0 SIR JOHN WH1TEF00RD. 

December, 1787. 
SIR, 

Mr. M'Kenzie, in Mauchl'me, my very warm and 
worthy friend, has informed me how much you are 
pleased to interest yourself in my fate as a man, and 
(what to me is incomparably dearer) my fame as a 
poet. 1 have, Sir, in one or two instances, been p at- 
ronized by those of your character in life, when I \»M 



LETTERS. 



77 



Introduced t3 their notice by ***** * friends to 
them, and honoured acquaintance to me j but you are 
the first gentleman: in the country whose benevolence 
and goodness of heart have interested him for me, un- 
solicited and unknown. 1 am not master enough of 
the etiquette of these matters to know, nor did 1 stay 
to inquire, whether formal duty bade, or cold propriety 
disallowed, my thanking you in this manner, as 1 am 
convinced, from the light in which you kindly viev 
me, that you will do me the justice to believe this lei 
ter is not the manoeuvre of the needy, sharping author 
fastening on those in upper life -who honour him with 
a little notice of him or his works. Indeed, the si 
tion of poet6 is generally such, to a proverb, as may 
in snme measure, palliate that prostitution of art and 
talents they have at times been guilty of. I do not 
think prodigality is, by no means, a necessary concom- 
itant of a poetic turn; but 1 believe a careless, indo- 
lent inattention to economy, is almost inseparable'"' )m 
it ; then there must be, in the heart of every ba\. j of 
Nature's making, a certain modest sensibility, mixed 
with a kind of pride, that will ever keep him out of the 
way of those windfalls of fortune, which frequently 
light on hardy impudence and foot licking servility. It 
is not easy to imagine a more helpless state than bis, 
poetic fancy unfits him for the world, and whose cha- 
racter as a scholar gives him some pretensions to the 
politesse of life — yet is as poor as 1 am. 

For my part, I thank Heaven my star has been kind- 
er ; learning never elevated my ideas above the peas- 
ant's shade, and 1 have an independent fortune at the 
plough-tail. 

I was surprised to hear that any one who pretended 
in the least to {.he maimers of the gentleman, should be 
so foolish, or worse, as to stoop to traduce the morals 
of such a one as I am ; and so inhumanly cruel, too, 
as to meddle with that late most unfortunate part of 
my story. With a tear of gratitude, 1 thank you, 
Sir, for the warmth with which you interposed in be- 
half of my conduct. I am, 1 acknowledge, too frequen- 
ly the sport of whim, caprice, and passion — but rever- 
ence to God, and integrity to my fellow-creatures, I 
hope 1 shall ever preserve. I have no return, Sir, to 
make you for your goodness, but one--a return which, 
I am persuaded will not be unacceptable — the honest, 
warm wishes of a grateful heart for your happiness, 
and every one of that lovely flock who stand to you 
in a filial relation. If ever Calumny aim the poisoned 
shaft at them, may friendship be by to ward the 
olow 1 



No. XLI 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

Edinburgh, list January, 1788. 
After six weeks confinement, I am beginning to 
walk across the room. They have been six horrible 
weeks, anguish and low spirits made me unfit to read, 
write, or think. 

I have a hundred times wished that one could resign 
life as an officer resigns a commission ; for which 1 
would not takein any poor, ignorant wretch, hysdling 
out. Lately I was a sixpenny private , and, God 
knows, a miserable soldier enough : now 1 march to 
the campaign, a starving cadet; a little more con- 
spicuously wretched. 

I am ashamed of all this : for though I di want 
bravery for the warfare of life, I could wish, like some 
other soldiers, to have as much fortitude ur cunning as 
to dissemble or conceal my cowardice. 



As soon as I can bear the journey, which will be, I 
•uppose, about the middle of next week, I leave Edin- 
burgh, and soon after I shall pay my grateful duty at 
Ounlop-Hou3e. 



No. XLII. 

EXTRACT OP A LETTER. 

TO THE SAME. 

Edinburgh, 12th February, 1788. 
Some things in your late letters hurt me : not that 
you say them, but that you mistake me. Religion, 
my honoured Madam, has not only been all my life my 
chief dependence, but my dearest enjoyment. I have 
indeed been the luckless victim of wayward follies : 
but, alas ; I have ever been " more fool than knave." 
A mathematician without religion is a probable cha- 
racter ; and an irreligious poet is a monster. 



XLIII. 



TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

Mossgiel, 1th March, 17°8. 
MADAM, 

The last paragraph in yours of the 30th February 
affected me most, so I shall begin my answer where 
you ended your letter. That I am often a sinner with 
any little wit I have, I do confess : but I have taxed my 
recollection to no purpose to find out when it was em- 
ployed against you. 1 hate an ungenerous sarcasm a 
great deal worse than I do the devil ; at least, as Mil- 
ton describes him ; and though I may be rascally 
enough to be sometimes guilty of it myself, I cannot en- 
dure it in others. You, my honoured friend, who can- 
not appear in any light but you are sure of being re- 
spectable—you can afford to pass by an occasion to 
display your wit, because you my depend for fame on 
your sense ; or, if you choose to be silent, you know 
you can rely on the gratitude of many and the esteem 
of all ; but, God help us who are wits or witlings by 
profession, if we stand not for fame there, we sink un- 
supported 1 

I am highly flattered by the news you tell me of 
Coila.* 1 may say to the fair painter who does me so 
much honour, as Dr. Beattie says to Ross the poet of 
his muse Scota, from which, by the by, I took the idea 
of Coila: ('Tis a poem of Beattie's in the Scots dia- 
lect, which perhaps you have never seen.) 

" Ye shak your head, buto' my fegs, 
Ye've set auld Scota on her legs : 
Lang had she lien wi' buffe and flegs, 

Bombaz'd anddizzie, 
Her fiddle wanted strings and pegs, 

Waes me, poor hizzie I" 



XLIV. 

TO MR. ROBERT CLEGHORN. 

Mauchline, Zlst March, 1788. 
Yesterday, my dear Sir, as I was riding through a 
track of melancholy, joyless muirs, between Galloway 
and Ayrshire, it being Sunday, I turned my thoughts 
to psairns, and hymns, and spiritual songs ; and your 
favourite air Captain Okean, coming at length in my 
head, I tried these words to it. You will see that the 
first part of the tune must be repeated.! 

*A lady (daughter of Mrs. Dunlop) was making 
a picture from the description of Coila in the "Vision. 



tUere the Bard gives the first stanza of the" Cheva- 
lier's Lament." 



73 



LETTERS. 



1 am tolerably pleased with these verses : but, as I 
have only a sketch of the tune I leave it with you to try 
if they suit the measure of the music. 

I am so harrassed with care and anxiety about this 
farming project of mine, that my muse has degenera- 
ted into the veriest prose wench that ever picked cin- 
ders or followed a tinker. When 1 am fairly got into 
the routine of business, I shall trouble you with a lon- 
ger epistle ; perhaps with some queries respecting far- 
ming ; at present the world sits such a load on my 
mind, that it has effaced almost every trace of the 
' in me. 

My very best compliments and good wishes to Mrs. 
Cleghorn. 



FROM MR. ROBERT CLEGHORN. 

Saughton Mills, IIVi April, 1783. 
MY DEAR BROTHER FARMER, 

I was favoured with your very kind letter of the 3lsl 
nit., and considering myself greatly obliged to you lor 
your attention in sending me the song,* to my favour- 
ite air, Captain Olcean. The words delight me much, 
they fit the tune to a hair. I wish you would send me 
a verse or two more : and if you have no objection, I 
would have it in the Jacobite style. Suppose it should 
be sung after the fatal field of Culloden by the unfor- 
tunate Charles. Tenducci personates the lovely Mary 
Stuart in the song, Queen Mary' a Lamentation. Why 
miy not I sing in the person of her great-great-great- 
grandson.t 

Any skill I have in country business you may tru- 
ly command. Situation soil, customs of countries, 
may vary from each other, but Farmer Attention is 
a good farmer in every place. I beg to hear from 
you soon. Mrs. Cleghorn joins me in best compli- 
ments. 

I am, in the most comprehensive sense of the word, 
your very sincere friend, 

ROBERT CLEGHORN. 



No. XL VI. 



TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

Mauchline, 28«i April, 1788. 
MADAM, 

Your powers of reprehension must be great indeed, 
as I assure you they made my heart ache with peniten- 
tial pangs, even though 1 was really not guilty. As I 
commence farmer at Whitsunday, you will easily 
guess 1 must be pretty busy ! but that is not all. As I 
got the offer of the excise-business without solicita- 
tio ; as it costs me only six mouths' attendance for 
iirstructions to entitle me to a commission, which com- 
mission lies by me, and at any future period, on my 
simple petition, can be resumed: 1 thought five and 
thirty pounds a-year was no bad dernier resort for a 
poor poet, if fortune, in her jade tricks, should kick 
him down from the little eminence to which she has 
lately helped him. 

For this reason, 1 am at present attending these in- 
structions, to have them completed before Whitsun- 
day. Still, Madam, I prepared, with the sineerest 
pleasure, to meet you at the Mount, and came to my 
brother's on Saturday night, to set out on Sunday ; 
bu* for some nights proceeding, 1 had slept in an 
apartment where the force of the winds and rains wsts 

* The Chevalier's Lament. 

f Our Poet took this advice. The whole of this beau- 
tiful song, as it was afterwards finished, is inserted in 
thePcem's. 



>rdv mitigated by being sifted through njmberle* 
apertures in the windows, walls, &c. In consequence 
I was on Sunday, Monday, and part of Tuesday, una 
ble to stir out of bed, with all Hie miserable efl'ects of 
a violent cold. 

You see Madam, the truth of the French maxim, 
Le vrai ?i'est pas toujows le vraisemblable. Your 
last was so full of expostulation, and was somethingso 
like the language of an offended friend, that 1 began to 
tremble for a correspondence which I had with grateful 
pleasure set down as one of the greatest enjoyments ol 
my future life. 



Your books have delighted me: Virgil, Dryden, 
and 7*1X890 , were all equally strangers tome; but of 
this more at large in my next. 



No. XLVII. 

FROM THE REV. JOHN SKINNER. 

Linshtart, 28th April, 1788. 
DEAR SIR, 

I received your last with the curious present you 
have favoured me with, and would have made proper 
acknowledgments before now, but that I have been ne- 
cessarily engaged in matters of a different complexion. 
And now, that J have got a little respite, I make use of 
it to thank you for this valuable instance of your good 
will, and to assure you that, with the sincere heart of 
true Scotsman, 1 highly esteem both the gift and the 
giver ; as a small testimony of which 1 have herewith 
sent you for your amusement (and in a form which I 
hope you will excuse for saving postage) the two songs 
1 wrote about to you already. Charming Nancy is the 
real production of genius in a ploughman of twenty 
years of age at the time ol its appearing, with no more 
education than what be picked up at an old farmer- 
grandfather's fire side, though now by the strength of 
natural parts, he is clerk to a thriving bleach field in 
the neighbourhood. And I doubt not but you will find in 
it a simplicity and delicacy, with some turns of hu- 
mour, that will please one of your taste ; at least it 
pleased me when 1 first saw it, il that can beany re- 
commendation to it. The other is entirely descrip- 
tive of my own sentiments : and you may make use of 
one or both as you shall see good.* 

* CHARMING NANCY. 

A SONG BY A BUCHAN PLOUGHMAN.' 

Tune — " Humours of Glen." 

Some sing of sweet Mally, some sing of fair Nelly, 

And some call sweet Susie the cause of their j.ain ; 
Some love to be jolly, some love melancholy, 

And some love to sing of the Humours of Glen. 
But my only fancy is my pretty Nancy, 

In venting my passion I'll strive to be plain ; 
I'll ask no more treasure, I'll seek no more pleasure, 

But thee, my dear Nancy, gin thou wert my ain. 



Her beauty delights me, her kindness invitee me, 

Iler pleasant behaviour is free from all stain, 
Therefore, my sweet jewel, O do not prove cruel ; 

Consent, my dear Nancy, and come be my ain. 
Her carriage is comely, her language is homely, 

Her dress is quite decent when ta'en in the main ; 
She's blooming in feature, she's handsome in statur« 

My charming dear Nancy, O wert thou my ain I 

Like rhcebus adorning the fa'r ruddy morning, 
Her bright eye« are sparkling, her brows are serene, 



LETTERS. 



79 



You wil! oblige me by presenting my respects to your 
host, Mr. Cruickshunk, who lias given such high appro- 
bation to my poor Latinily; you may let him know, that 
as I have likewise been a babbler in Latin poetry, I 
have two things that 1 would, if he desires it, submit, 
not to) his judgment, but to his amusement ; the one, a 
translation of Christ-' s Kirk o' the Green, printed at 
Aberdeen some years ago ; the other Batrachomyom- 
achia Homeri latinis vtslila cum addilamentis, given 
in lately to Chalmers, to print it he pleases. Mr. C. 
will know Sera non semper delectant, non joca sem- 
per. Semper delectanl seria maXlajocis. 

I have just room to repeat compliments and good 
wishes from, 

Sir, your humble servant, 

JOHN SKINNER. 



No. LXVIII. 

TO PROFESSOR DUGALD STEWART. 

Mauchline, 3d May, 1788. 
SIR, 

I enclose to you one or two of my bagatelles. If the 
fervent wishes of honest gratitude have any influence 

Her yellow locks shining, in beauty combining, 
My charming sweet Nancy, wilt thou be my ain ? 

The whole of her face is with maidenly graces 
Array'd iike the gowans that grow in yon glen ; 

She's well shap'd and slender, true-hearted and ten- 
der, 
My charming sweet Nancy, O wert thou my ain I 

I'll seek thro' the nation for some habit? tion, 

To sheltermy jewel from cold, snow, and rain, 
With songs to my deary, I'll keep her ay cheery, 

My charming sweet Nancy, gin thou wert my ain. 
I'll work at my calling to furnish thy dwelling, 

With ev'ry thing needful thy life to sustain ; 
Thou shalt not sit single, but by a clear ingle, 

I'll marrow thee, Nancy, when thou art my ain. 

I '11 make true affection the constant direction 

Of loving my Nancy, while life doth remain : 
Tho' youth will be wasting, true love shall be lasting, 

My charming sweet Nancy, gin too wert my ain. 
But what if my Nancy should alter her fancy, 

To favour another be forward and fain, 
1 will not compel her, but plainly I'll tell her, 

Begone, thou false Nancy, thou'se ne'er be my ain. 

THE OLD MAN'S SONG. 

BY THE REVEREND J. SKINNER. 

Tune — " Dumbarton Drums." 

O 1 why should old age so much wound us ? O, 
There is nothing in't all to confound us, O, 

For how happy now am I, 

With my old wife silting by, 
And our bairns and our oys all around us, O. 

We began in the world wi' naething, 0, 
And we've jogg'd on and toil'd for the ae thing, 0, 
We made use of what we had, 
And our thankful hearts were glad, 
When we got the bit meat andtheclaething, O. 

We have liv'd all our-life time contented, O, 
Since the day we became first acquainted, O, 



with the great unknown Being, who frames ths chain 
of causes and events, prosperity and happiness will 
attend your visit to the Continent, and return you 
safe to your native shore. 

Wherever I am, allow me, Sir, to claim as it is my 
privilege to acquaint you with my progress in my trade 
of rhymes; as 1 am sure 1 could say it with truth, 
thai Uie next to my little frame, ami the having it in 
my power to make life a Utile more comfortable to 
those whom nature has made dear to me, 1 shall ever 
regard your countenance, your patronage, your friend- 
ly good unices, as the most valued consequence of my 
late success iu life. 



No. XLIX. 

EXTRACT OF A LETTER 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

Mauchline, 4lh Miv, 1788. 
MADAM, 

Dryden's Virgil has delighted me. Irk not know 
whether the critics will agree with me, but the Geor- 

It's true we've been but poor, 
And we are so to this hour, 
Yet we never yet repined nor lamented, O. 

We ne'er thought of schemes to be wealthy, 
By ways that were cunning or stealthy, O, 
But we always had the bliss, 
And what further could we wiss, 
To be pleas'dwi' ourselves, and be healthy, O. 

What tho' we canna boast of our guineas, 0, 
We have plenty of Jockies and Jennies, O, 

And these I'm certain, are 

More desirable by far, 
Than a pocket full of poor yellow sleenles, O . 

We have seen many wonder and ferlie, O, 
Of changes that almost are veany, o, 

Among rich folks up and down, 

Both iu country and in town, 
Who now live butscrimply and barely, O. 

Then why should people brag of prosperity, O, 
A straitened life we see is no rarity, O, 

Indeed we've been in want, 

And our living been but scant, 
Yet we never were reduced to need charity, 

In this house we first came together, O, 

Where we've long been a Father and a Mither, O, 

And, tho' nut ofstone and lime, 

It will last us a' our time, 
And, I hope, we shall never need anither, O. 
And when we leave this habitalion, O, 
We'll depart with a good commendation, O, 

We'll go hand in hand I wiss, 

To a better house than this, 
To make room for the next generation, O. 

Then why should old age so much wound us ? O, 
There's nothing in't all to confound us, O, 

For how happy now am I, 

With my old wife sitting by, 
And our Dairns and our oys all around u», O. 



80 



LETTERS. 



gict are to me by far the best of Virgil. It is, indeed, 
a species of writing entirely new to me, and has filled 
iny bead with a thousand fancies of emulation ; bui, 
alas ! when I read the Georgics and then survey my 
powers, 'tis like the idea oi a Shetland pony, drawn 
up by the side of a thorough bred hunter, lo start for 
the plate. I own 1 am disappointed in the JEnbd. 
Faultless correctness may please, and does highly 
please the lettered critic : but to that awful character 1 
have not the most distant pretensions. I do not know 
whether 1 do not hazard my pretensions to be a ciitic 
of any kind, when I say, that I think Virgil, in many 
instances, a servile copier of Homer, if I had the 
Odyssey by me, 1 could parallel many passages 
where Virgil has evidently copied, but by no means 
improved Homer. Nor can I think there is any thing 
of this owing to the translators ; for, from every thing 
I have seen of Dryden, 1 think him, in genius and flu- 
ency of language, Pope's master. 1 have not perused 
Tasso enough to form an opinion ; in some future let- 
ter you shall have my ideas of him ; though 1 am con- 
scious my criticisms must be very inaccurate and im- 
perfect as there I have ever felt and lamented my want 
of learning most. 



No. L. 



TO THE SaME. 



27^May, 17S3. 
MADAM, 

I have been torturing my philosophy to no porpose 
to account for that kind partiality of yours, which, un- 
like * * * has followed me in my return to the 
shade of life, with assiduous benevolence. Often did 
I regret, in the fleeting hours of my Will-o'-Wisp ap- 
pearance, that " here I had no continuing city ;" and, 
but for the consolation of a few solid guineas, could 
almost lament the lime that a momentary acquaint- 
ance with wealth and splendour put me so much out of 
conceit with the sworn companions of my road through 
life, insignificance and poverty. 



There are few circumstances relating to the unequal 
distribution of the good things of this life, that give me 
more vexation (I mean in what I see around me,) 
than the importance the opulent bestow on their tri- 
fling family affairs, compared with the very same 
things on the contracted scale of a cottage. Last af- 
ternoon I had the honour to spend an hour or two at 
a good woman's fire-side, where the planks that com- 
posed the floor were decorated with a splendid carpet, 
and the gay tables sparkled with silver and china. 
'Tis now about term day, and there has been a revolu- 
tion among those creatures, who, though in appear- 
ance partakers, and equally noble partakers, of the 
game nature with Madame, are from time to time, 
their nerves, their sinews, their health, strength, wis- 
dom, experience, genius, time, nay, a good part of 
their very thoughts, sold for months and years, * * 

* * not only to the necessities) the conveniences, 
but the caprices of i lie important few.* We talked of 
the insignificant creatures ; nay, notwithstanding their 
general etupidity and rascality, did some of the poor 
devils the honour to commend them. But light be the 
turf upon his breast who taught — " Reverence thy- 
self." We looked down on the unpolished wretches, 
tneir impertinent wives and clouterly brats, as the 
lordly bull does on the little dirty ant-hill, whose puny 
inhabitants he crushes in the carelessness o! his ram- 
bles, or tosses in the air in the wantonness of his pride. 

'•Servants in Scotland, are hired from term to 
term J i. t. from Whitsunday to Martinmas, &c. 



No. LI. 

TO THE SAME. 

AT MR. DUNLOP'S, HADDINGTON. 

Ellisland, 13th June, 1788 

" Where'er I roam, whatever realms I see, 
My heart, untravtll'd, fondly turns to thee, 
Still to my friend returns with ceaseless pain, 
And drags at eacli remove a lengthen'd chain." 
Goldsmith. 

This is the second day, my honoured friend, that I 
have been on my farm. A solitary inmate of an old 
smoky Upence ; far from every object I love, or by 
whom I am beloved ; nor any acquaintance older than 
yesterday, except Jenny Qeddes, the old mare 1 ride 
on ; while uncouth cares and novel plans hourly insult 
my awkward ignorance ami bashful inexperience. 
There is a foggy atmosphere native to my soul in the 
hour of care; consequently, the dreary objects seem 
larger than the hie. Extreme sensibility, irritated 
and prejudiced on the gloomy side by a series of mis- 
fortunes and disappointments, at that period of my 
existence when the soul is laying in her cargo of ideas 
for the voyage of life, is, I believe, the principal cai:se 
of this unhappy frame of mind. 

" The valiant, in himself, what can he suffer ? 
Or what need he regard his single woes ?" &e. 

Your surmise, Madam, is just; I am indeed a hus 
band. 



I found a once much-loved and still much-loved fe- 
male, literally and tiuly cast out to the mercy of the 
naked elements ; but I enabled her to purc/iasea shel- 
ter; and there is no sporting with a fellow-creature's 
happiness or misery. 

The most placid good-nature and sweetness of dispo- 
sition ; a warm heart, gratefully devoted with all its 
powers to love me ; vigorous health and sprightly 
cheerfulness, set oft' to the best advantage by a more 
than commonly handsome figure; the'se, I think in a 
woman, may make a good wiie, though she should 
never have read a page but the Scriptures of the Old 
and New Testament, nor have danced in a brighter 
assembly than a penny-pay wedding. 



No. LII. 

TO MR. P. HILL. 

MY DF.AR HILL, 

I shall say nothing at all to your mad present — you 
have long and often been of important service to me, 
and I suppose yon mean to go on conferring obliga- 
tions until 1 shall not be able to lift up my face before 
you. In the mean time, as Sir Roger tie Coverly, be- 
cause it happened to- he a cold day in which he made 
his will, ordered his servants great coats for mourning, 
so, because I have been this week plagued with an in- 
digestion, 1 have sent you by *.ne carrier a fine old 
ewe-milk cheese. 

Indigestion is the devil : nay, 'tis the devil and all. 
It besets a man in every one of his senses I lose my 
appetite at the sight of successful knavery, and sicken 
to loathing at the noise and r.uoaense of self-important 
folly. When the hollow-nearted wretch takes me by 
the hand, the feeling spoils my dinner ; the proud 
man's wine so offends my palate Unit it chokes me in 



LETTERS. 



the gadet ; and the pulvilised, feathered, pert cox- 
comb, is no disgustful iu my nostril, that my stomach 
turns. 

If ever you have any of these disagreeable sensa- 
tions, let me prescribe for you patience and a bit of 
my cheese. 1 know that you are no niggard of your 
good things among your friends, and some of them are 
in much need of a slice. There in my eye is our 
friend, Smellie ; a man positively of the first abilities 
and greatest strength of mind, as well as one of the 
best hearts and keenest wits that [ have ever met 
with ; when you see him, as alas ! he loo is smarting 
at the pinch of distressful circumstances, aggravated 
by the sneer of contumefious greatness— a bit of my 
cheese alone will not cure him ; but if you add a tan- 
kard of brown stout, and superadd a magnum of right 
Oporto, you will see his sorrows vanish like the morn- 
ing mist before the summer sun. 

C h, the earliest friend, except my only broth- 
er, that I have on earth, and one of the worthiest fel- 
lows that ever any man called by the name of friend, 
if a luncheon of my cheese would help to rid him of 
some of his superabundant modesty, you would do 
well to give it him. 

David,* with his Courant, comes too, across my 
recollection, and 1 beg you will help him largely from 
the said ewe-milk cheese, to enable him to digest those 
— bedaubing paragraphs with which he is eternally 
larding the lean characters of certain great men in a 
certain great town, I grant you the periods are very 
well turned ; so, a fresh egg is a very good thing, but 
when thrown at a man in a pillory it does not at ail 
improve his figure, not to mention the irreparable loss 
of the egg. 

My facetions friend, D r, I would wish also to 

be a partaker: not to digest his spleen, for that he 
laughs off, but to digest his last night's wine at the last 
field day of the Crochallau corps.] 

Among our common friends, I must not forget one 
of the dearest of them, Cunningham. The brutality, 
insolence, and selfishness of a world unworthy of ha- 
ving such a fellow a3 he is in it, 1 know sticks in his 
stomach ; and if you can help him to any thing that 
will make him a little easier on that score, it will be 
very obliging. 

As to honest J S— — e, he is such a content- 
ed happy man, that I know not what can annoy him, 
except perhaps he may not have got the better of a par- 
cel of modest anecdotes which a certain poet gave him 
one night at supper, the last time the said poet was in 
town. 

Though I have mentioned so many men of law, I 
shall have nothing to do with them professedly. The 
faculty are beyond my prescription. As to their clients, 
that is another thing : God knows they have much to 
digest 1 

The clergy I pass by ; their profundity of erudition, 
and their liberality of sentiment ; their total want of 
pride, and their detestation of hypocrisy, are so pro- 
verbially notorious as to place them far, far above 
either my praise or censure. 

I was going to mention a man of worth, whom I 
have the honour to call friend, the Laird of Craigdar- 
roch ; but I have spoken to the landlord of the King's- 
arms inn here, to have, at the next county-meeting, a 
large ewe-miik cheese on the table, for the benefit of 
the Dumfriesshire whigs, to enable them to digest ihe 
Duks of (iueensberry's late political conduct. 



I have just this moment an opportunity of a private 
hand to Edinburgh, as perhaps you would not digest 
double postage. 



• Printer of the Edinburgh Evening Courant. 
t 4- siub of choice spirits. 



No. LIII. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP 

Mauchline, 2d August, 1788. 
HONOURED MADAM, 

Your kind letter welcomed me, yesternight, to Ayr. 
shire. 1 am indeed seriously angry with you at the 
qu mtum luck pen:y : but, vexed and hurt as I was, I 
could not help laughing very hear tily at the noble 
Lord's apology for the missed napkin. 

I would write you from Nithsdale. and give you my 
direction there, but I have scarce an opportunity of 
calling at a post-office once in a fortnight. I am six 
miles from Dumfries, am scarcely ever in it myself, 
and, as yet, have little acquaintance in the neigh- 
bourhood. Besides, I am now very busy on my farm, 
building a dwelling-house ; as at present I am almost 
an evangelical man in Nithsdale, fori have sca.ee 
" where to lay my head." 

There are some passages in your last that brought 
tears in my eyes. " The heart knoweth its own sor- 
rows, and a stranger intermeddleth not therewith." 
The repository of these " sorrows of the heart," is a 
kind of sanctum sanctorum ; and 'tis only a chosen 
friend, and that too at particular sacred times, who 
dares enter into them. 

" Heaven oft tears the bosom chords 
That nature finest strung." 

You will excuse this quotation for the sake of the 
author. Instead of entering on this subject farther, 1 
shall transcribe you a few lines I wrote in a hermit- 
age belonging to a gentleman in my Nithsdale neigh- 
bourhood. They are almost the only favours the 
muses have conferred on me in that country.* 

Since I am in the way of transcribing, the following 
were the production of yesterday, as 1 jogged through 
the wild hills of New-Cumnock. I intend inserting 
them, or something like them, in an epistle I am going 
to write to the gentleman on whose friendship my ex- 
cise-hopes depend, Mr. Graham of Fintry, one of the 
worthiest and most accomplished gentlemen, not only 
of this country, but I will dare to say it, of this age. 
The following are just the first crude thoughts " un 
houseled, unanointed, unaunealed." 



Pity the tuneful muses' helpless train : 

Weak, timid landsmen on life's stormy main : 

The world were bless'd, did bliss on them depend ; 

Ah ! that "the friendly e'er should want a friend 1" 

The little fate bestows they share as soon ; 

Unlike sage proverb'd wisdom's hard-wrung boon. 

Let prudence number o'er each sturdy son 

Who life and wisdom at one race begun ; 

Who feel by reason, and who give by rule ; 

(Instinct's a brute, and sentiment a fool !) 

Who make poor will do wait upon I should 

We own they're prudent, but who owns they'r good ? 

Ye wise ones, hence ! ye hurt the social eye I 
God's image rudely etch'd on base alloy I 
But come 

Here the muse left me, I am astonished at what you 
tell me of Anthony's writing me. 1 never received it. 
Poor fellow ! you vex me much by telling me that he is 
unfortunate. 1 shall bein Ayrshire ten days from this 
date. I have just room for an old Roman farewell 1 



The lines transcribed ' 
ars Carse Hermitage, 

L 2 



those written in PrU 



LETTERS. 



No. LIV. 

TO THE SAME. 

Mnuchline, \0th August-, .788. 
MY" MUCH HONOURED FRIEND, 

Yours of the 24th June 13 before me. 1 found it, as 
well as another valued friend— my wife, waiting to 
welcome me to Ayrshire : I wet both with the sin- 
ceresl pleasure. 



When I write you, Madam, I do not sit down to an- 
swer every paragraph of yours, by echoing every sen 
timent, like the faithful Commons' of Great Britain in 
Parliament assembled, answering a speech from the 
best of kings! I express myself in the fulness of my 
heart, and may perhaps be guilty of neglecting some 
of your kind inquiries ; but not, from your very odd 
reason, that J do not read your letters. All your 
epistles for several months have cost me nothing, ex- 
cept a swelling throb of gratitude, or. a deep felt senti- 
ment of veneration. 

Mrs. Burns, Madam, is the identical woman 



When she first found herself " as wish to be 

who love their lords," as 1 loved her nearly to distrac- 
tion, we took steps for a private marriage, lier pa- 
rents got the hint : and not only forbade me her com- 
pany and the house, but, on my rumoured West-In- 
dian voyage, got a warrant to put me in jail till I 
should find security in my about-to-be paternal rela- 
tion. You know my lucky reverse of fortune. On my 
eclatanl return to Maucbline, I was made very wel- 
come to visit my girl. The usual consequences began 
to betray her ; and as 1 was at that time laid up a 
cripple in Edinburgh, she was turned, literally turned 
out of doors : and I wrote to a friend to shelter her 
till my return, when our marriage was declared. Her 
happiness or misery were in my hands ; and who could 
trifle with such a deposite ? 



I can easily fancy a more agreeable companion for 
my journey of life, but, upon my honour, I have never 
seen the individual instance. 



Circumstanced as I am, I could never have got a fe- 
male paitner for lile, who could have entered into my 
favourite studies, relished my favourite authors, &c. 
without probably entailing on me, at the same time," 
expensive living, fantastic caprice, perhaps apish af- 
fectation, with all tlie other blessed boarding school 
acquirements, which (pardonnez moi, Madame,) are 
Bometimes, to be found among females of the upper 
ranks, but almost universally pervade the misses of 
the would-be-gentry. 



I like your way in your church-yard lucubrations. 
Thoughts that are the spontaneous result of accidental 
situations, either respecting health, place, or compa- 
ny, have often a strength and always an originality, 
that would in vain be looked for in fancied circum- 
stances and studied paragraphs. For nie, I have often 
thought of keeping a letter in progression, by me, lo 
send you when the sheet was written out. Now I 
talk of sheets, I must tell you, my reason for writing to 
you on paper of this kind, is my pruriency of writing 
to you at large. A page of (lost is on such a dissocial 
narrow minded scale that ] cannot abide it ; and dou- 
ble letters, at least in my miscellaneous reverie man- 
ner, are a monstrous tax in a close correspondence. 



No. LV. 

TO THE SAME. 

Ellisland, I6lh, August, 17S8. 
I am in a fine disposition, my honoured friend, to 
send you an elegiac epistle ; and want only genius to 
make it quite Shenstonian. 

" Why droops my heart with fancied woes forlorn? 
Why sinks my soul beneath each wint'ry sky ? : ' 



My increasing cares in this, as yet, strange country- 
gloomy conjectures in the dark vista of futurity — cor, 
sci»usness of my own inability for the struggle of the 
world— my broadened mark to misfortune in a wife 
and children ; — 1 could indulge these reflections, till 
my humour should ferment into the most acid chagrin, 
that wouldcorrode the very thread of life. 

To counterwork these baneful feelings, I have sat 
down to write to you ; as I declare upon my soul, I 
always find that the most sovereign balm for my 
wounded spirit. 

I was yesterday at Mr. 's to dinner for the 

first time. My reception was quite to my mind : 
from the lady of the house, quite flattering. She some- 
times hits on a couplet or two, impromptu. She re- 
peated one or two to the admiration of all present. My 
suffrage as a professional man, was expected : I for 
once went agonizing over the belly of my conscience. 
Pardon me, ye, my'adored household gods — Independ- 
ence of Spirit, and integrity of Soul! In the course 
of conversation, Johnson's Musical Museum, a col- 
lection of. Scottish songs with the music, was talked of. 
We got a song on the harpsichord, beginning, 

" Raving winds around her blowing."* 

The air was much admired ; the lady of the house 
asked me whose were the words ; " Mine, Madam — 
they are indeed my very best verses :" she took not 
the smallest notice of them ! The old Scottish proverb 
says well; " king's caff is better than ither folk's corn.;" 
I was going to make a New Testament quotation 
about " casting pearls ;" but that would be too viru- 
lent, for the lady is actually a woman of sense and 
taste. 



After all that has been said on the other side of the 
question, man is by no means a happy creature. I do 
not speak of the selected few favoured by partial hea- 
ven ,• whose souls are turned to gladness, amid riches 
and honours, and prudence and wisdom. I speak ol 
the neglected many, whose nerves, whose sinews, 
whose days, are sold to the minions of fortune. 

If I thought you bad never seen it, I would transcribe 
for you a stanza of an old Scottish ballad, called The 
Life and Age of Man ; beginning thus : 

'• 'Twas in the sixteenth hunder year 

Of God and fifty-three, 
Frae Christ was born, that bought ub clear, 

As writings teslifie." 

I had an old grand-uncle, with whom my mothei 

lived awhile in her girlish years ; the good old man, 

for such he was, was long blind ere he died, during 

which time, his highest enjoyment was to sit down and 

y, while my mother would sing the simple old 6ong 

Th- Life and Age of Man. 

It is this way of thinking, it is these melancholy 
truths, that make religion so precious to the poor, 

* See Poems, p. 103. 



LETTERS. 



(Btoerable children of men— if it is a mere phantom, ex- 
isting only hi the heated imagination of enthusiasm . 

" What truth on earth so precious as the lie?" . 

My idle reasonings sometimes make me a little scep- 
tical, but the necessities of my heart always give the 
cold philosophizings the lie. Who looks for the heart 
weaned from eartli ; the soul affianced to 'her God j the 
correspondence fixed with heaven ; the pious supplica 
tion and devout thanksgiving, constant as the vicissi- 
tudes of even and morn ; who thinks to meet with these 
in the court, the palace, in the glare of public life? 
No : to find them in their precious importance and di- 
vine efficacy, we must search among the obscure re- 
cesses of disappointment, affliction, poverty, and dis- 
tress. 

I am sure, clear Madam, you are now more than 
pleased with the length of my letters. I return to 
Ayrshire middle of next week-; and it quickens my 
pace to think that there will be a letter from you 
wailing me there. I must be here again very soon for 
my harvest. 



No. LV 



TO R. GRAHAM, ESQ.. OF FINTRY. 

SIR, 

When I had the honour of beingintroduced to you at 
.Athole-house, I did not think so soon of asking a favour 
of you. When Lear, in Shakspeare, asks old Kent why 
he wishes to be in his service, he answers, "Because 
you have that in your face which I could like to call 
master." For some such reason, Sir, do I now solicit 
your patronage. You know, I dare say, of an appli- 
cation I lately made to your Board to be admitted an 
officer of excise. I have, according to form, been ex- 
amined by a supervisor, and to-day I gave in his certifi- 
cate, with a request for an order for instructions. In 
this affair, if I succeed, I am afraid I shall but too much 
need a patronising friend. Propriety of conduct as a 
man, and fidelity and attention as an officer, I dare en- 
gage for : but with any thing like business, except 
manual labour, I am totally unacquainted. 



1 had intended to have closed my late appearance on 
the stage of life in the character of a country farmer ; 
but, after discharging some filial and fraternal claims, 
I find I could only fight for existence in that miserable 
manner, which 1 have lived to see throw a venerable 
parent into the jaws of a jail : whence death, the 
poor man's last and often best friend, rescued him. 

I know, Sir, that to need your goodness is to have a 
claim on it ; may I therefore beg your patronage to 
forward me in this affair, till I be appointed to a divi- 
sion, where, by the help of rigid economy, I will try to 
support that independence so dear to my soul, but 
which has been too often so distant from my situation.* 



No. LVII. 

TO MR. PETER HILL. 

Mauchline, \st October, 1788. 
i have been here in this country about three days, 
^^A all that time my chief reading has been the " Ad- 
v**ss to Loch-Lomond," you were so obliging as to 
■■cdtome. Were ! empannelled one of the author's 
'■p&ry to determine his criminality respecting the sin of 
poosy, my verdict should be " guilty I A poet of Na. 

* Here followed the poetical part of the Epistle, 
given to the Poems. 



lure's malting." It is an excellent method for hn 
provement, and what I believe every poet does, to 
place some favourite classic author, in his own walk 
of study and composition, before him as a model. 
Though your author had not mentioned the name I 
could have, at half a glance, guessed his model to be 
Thomson. Will my brother-poet forgive me, if I ven- 
ture to hint, that his imitation of that immortal bard 
is, in two or three places, rather more servile than 
such a genius as his required— e. g. 

To sooth the madding passions all to peace. 

Address. 
• To sooth the throbbing passions into peace. 

Th.oms.on. 



I think the Address is, in simplicity, 'harmony, and 
elegance of -versification, fully equal' to the Seasons. 
Like Thomson, too, he has looked into nature for him- 
self ; yon mpet with no copied description. One par- 
ticular criticism I made at first reading ; in no one in- 
stance has he said loo much. He never flags in his 
progress, but, like a true poet of Nature's making, 
kindles in his course. His beginning is simple and 
modest, as if distrustful of the strength of his pinion ; 
only, I do not altogether like — 



The soul of every song that's nobly great." 

Fiction is the soul of many a song that is nobly 
great. Perhaps I am wrong : this may be but a prose- 
criticism. Is not the phrase, in hne 7, page6. " Great 
Lake," too much vulgarized : ^y every-day language, 
for so sublime a poem ? ' 

" Great mass of waters, theme for nobler song," 

is perhaps no emendation. His enumeration of a com- 
parison with other lakes is at once harmonious and 
poetic. Every reader's ideas must sweep the 

" Winding margin of an hundred miles." 

The perspective that follows mountains blue — the 
imprisoned billows beating in vain — the wooded isles — 
the digression on the yew tree — " Ben-Lomond's lofty 
cloud envelup'd head," &c. are beautiful. A thun- 
der-storm is a subject which has been often tried ; yet 
our poet in his grand picture, has interjected a circum- 
stance, so far as I know, entirely original : 

" The gloom 
Deep-seamed with frequent streaks of moving fre." 

In his preface to the storm, " The glens, how dark 
between !" is noble highland landscape ! The "rain 
ploughing the red mould, too, is beautifully fancied. 
Ben-Lomond's " lofty pathless top," is a good ex- 
pression ; and the surrounding view from it i3 truly 
great : the 

" Silver mist 
Beneath the beaming sun," 

is well described : and here he has contrived to enliven 
his poem with a little of that passion which bids fair, I 
think, to usurp the modern muses altogether. I know 
not how far this episode is a beauty upon the whole ; 
but the swain's wish to carry " some faint idea of the 
vision bright," to entertain her " partial listening 
ear," is a pretty thought. But, in my opinion, the 
most beautiful passages in the whole poem are the 
fowls crowding, in wintry frosts, to Loch-Lomond'* 
" hospitable flood ;" thtir wheeling round, their light- 
ing, mixing, diving, &c. ; and the glorious description 
of the sportsman. This last is equal to any thing in 
the Seasons. The idea of " the Boatingtribes distant 
seen, far glistering to the moon," provoking his eye aa 
he is obliged to leave them, is a nobl ray of poetic 



64 



LETTERS. 



genius. " The howling winds," the " hideous roar" 
of" the white cabcades," are all in the same style. 

I forget that, while I am thus holding forth, with 
the heedless warmth of an enthusiast, 1 am perhaps ti- 
ring you with nonsense. 1 must, however, mention, 
that the last verse of the sixteenth page is one of the 
most elegant compliments 1 have ever seen. I must 
likewise notice that beautiful paragraph, beginning, 
"The gleaming lake," &.C. I dare not go into the 
particular beauties of the two last paragraphs, but they 
are admirably fine, and truly Ossianic. 

I must beg your pardon for this Lengthened scrawl. 
1 had no idea of it when I began — I should like to know 
who the author is ; but, whoever he be, please pre- 
sent him with my grateful thanks for the entertainment 
he has afforded me.* 



A friend of mine desired me to commission for him 
two books, Letters on the Religion esse'iti il to Man, a 
book you sent me before ; and, The World U/nnasketl, 
or the Philosopher the greatest Cheat. Send me them 
by the first opportunity. The Bible you sent me is 
truly elegant. 1 only wish it had been in two vol- 
umes. 



No. LVIII. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP, AT MOREHAM MAINS. 

Mauchline, lolh November, 1788. 
MADAM, 

I had the very great pleasure of dining at Dunlop 
yesterday. Men are said to Halter >vouie:i because 
they are weak ; if it is so, poets must he weaker still ; 
for Misses R. and K., and Miss G. M'K., with their 
flattering attentions and arlfu! compliments, absolute- 
ly turned my head. 1 own they did not lard me over 
as many a poet does his patron * * * * but they 
bo intoxicated me with their sly insinuations and deli- 
cate inuendoes of compliments that if it had not been 
for a lucky recollection, how much additional weight 
and lustre your good opinion and friendship must give 
me in that circle, I had certainly looked upon myself 
as a person of no small consequence, i dare not say 
one word how much 1 was charmed with llie Major's 
friendly welcome, elegant manner, and acute remark, 
lest I should be thought to balance my orientalisms of 
applause over against the finest queyl in Ayrshire, 
which he made me a present of to help and adorn my 
stock. As it was on Hallowday, I am determined an- 
nually, as that day returns, to decorate her horns 
jvilh an ode of gratitude to the family of Dunlop. 



So soon as I know of your arrival at Dunlop, I will 
take the first conveyance to dedicate a day, or perhaps 
two, to you and friendship, under the guarantee of the 
Major's hospitality. There will be soon threescore 
and ten miles of permanent distance between us ; and 
now that your friendship and friendly correspondence 
is entwisted with the heart-strings of my enjoyment of 
life, 1 must indulge myself in a happy day of " The 
feast of reason and the flow of soul." 



No. LIX. 

TO * « • • 

November 8, 1788. 
SIR, 

Notwithstanding the opprobrious epithets with which 
some of our philosophers and gloomy sectaries have 

* The poem, entitled, An Address to Loch- Lomond, 
is said to be written by a gentleman, now one of the 
Masters of the High-school at Edinburgh ; and the 
tame who translated the beautiful story of the Paria, 
as published in '.he Bee of Dr. Anderson. E. 
'Heifer. 



branded our nature— the principle of universal selfish- 
ness, the proneness to all evil, they havegiven us ; still 
the detestation in which inhumanity le the distressed, 
or insolence to the fallen, are held by all mankind, 
shnwj that they are not motives of the human heart. 
Even the unhappy partner of our kind, who is undone 
by the bitter consequence of his follies or his crimes ;— 
who but sympathizes with the miseries of this ruined 
profligate brother? we forgot th e injuries, and feel for 
the man. 

I went, last Wednesday to my parish-church, most 
cordially to join in grateful acknowledgements to the 
Author of all Good, for (he consequent blessings of 
the glorious Revolution. To that auspicious event we 
owe no less than our liberties, civil and religious, to it 
we are likewise indebted for our present Royal Fami- 
ly, ihe ruling features of whose administration have ev- 
er been mildness to the subject, and tenderness of hie 
rights. 

Bred and educated in revolution principles, th» 
principles of reason and common sense, il could not 
be any silly political prejudice which made my heart 
revolt at the harsh, abusive manner in which the rev- 
erend gentleman mentioned the House of Stewart, and 
which, I am afraid, was too much the language of ths 
day. We may rejo.ee sufficiently in our deliverance 
from past evils, without cruelly raking up the ashes of 
those whose misfortune it was, perhaps as much as 
their crime, to be the authors of those evils; and we 
may bless God lor all his goodness to us as a nation, 
without, at the same time, cursing a few ruined, 
powerless exiles, who only harboured ideas, and made 
attempts, that most of us would have done had we been 
in their situation. 

"The bloody and tyrannical house of Stewart," may 
be said with propriety and justice when compared 
with the present Royal Family, and the sentiments of 
our days; but is there no allowance to be made for 
the manners of the lime? Were the royal contempo- 
raries of the Stewarts more atlentive to their subjects' 
rights? Might not the epithets of " bloody aud ty- 
rannical. 1 ' be with at least equal justice applied to the 
House of Tudor, of Vork, or any other of their prede- 
cessors ? 

The simple state of the Case, Sir, seems to be this }— 
At that period, the science of government, the knowl- 
edge of the true relation between king and subject, 
was, like other sciences and other knowledge, just ill 
its infancy, emerging from dark ages of ignorance and 
barbarity. 

The Stewarts only contended for prerogatives which 
they knew their predecessors enjoyed, and which they 
saw their contemporaries enjoying ; but these pre- 
rogatives were inimical to the happiness of a nation 
and the rights of subjects. 

In this contest between prince and people, the con- 
sequence of that light of science which had lately dawn- 
ed over Europe, the monarch of France, for example, 
was victorious over the struggling liberties of his peo- 
ple ; with us, luckily, the monarch failed, and his un- 
warrantable pretensions fell a sacrifice to our rights 
ami happiness. Whether it was owing to the wisdom 
of leading individuals, or to the justling of parties, I 
cannot pretend to determine ; but likewise, happily for 
us, the kingly power was shifted into another branch 
of the family, who, as they owed the throne solely to 
the call of a free people, could claim nothing incon- 
sistent with the covenanted terms which placed them 
there. 

The Stewarts have been condemned and laughed at 
for their folly and impracticability of their attempts m 
171:5 and 174 >. That they failed, 1 bless God; but 
cannot join in the ridicule against them. Who does 
not know that the abilities or defects of leaders and 
commanders are often hidden, until put to the touch* 
stone of exigency; and that there is a caprice of for- 
tune, an omnipotence in particular accidents and con- 
junctures of circumstances which exalt us as heroes, 



LETTERS. 



S5 



•r brand us as madmen, just as they are for or against 

Man, Mr. Publisher, is a strange, weak, inconsist- 
ent being ; who would believe, Sir, that in this, our 
Augustan age of liberality and refinement, while we 
seem so justly sensible and jealous of our rights and 
liberties, and animated with such indignation against 
the very memory of those who would have subverted 
them— "that a certain people under our national protec- 
tion, should complain, not against our monarch and a 
few favourite advisers, but against our whole legisla- 
tive body, for similar oppression, and almost in the 
very same terms, as our forefathers did of the House of 
Stewart! I will not, 1 cannot enter into the merits of 
the cause, but 1 dare say, the American Congress, in 
1776, will be allowed to be as able and as enlightened 
as the English Convention was in 1688 : and that their 
posterity will celebrate the centenary of their deliver- 
ance from us, as duly and sincerely as we do ours 
from the oppressive measures of the wrong headed 
House of Stewart. 

To conclude, Sir : let every man who has a tear for 
the many miseries incident to humanity, feel for a 
family illustrious as any in Europe, and unfortunate 
beyond historic precedent ; and let every Briton, (and 
particularly every Scotsman,) who ever looked with 
reverential pity on the dotage of a parent, cast a veil 
over the fatal mistakes of the kings of his fore-fa- 
thers.* 



No. LX. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

Ellisland, \lth Dec. 1788. 
MY DEAR, HONOURED FRIEND, 

Yours, dated Edinburgh, which I have just read, 
makes me very unhappy. " Almost blind, and wholly 
deaf," are melancholy news of human nature ; but 
when told of a much-loved and honoured friend, they 
carry misery in the souud. Goodness on your part, 
and gratitude on mine, began a tie, which has gradually 
and strongly entwisted itself among the dearest cords 
of my bosom ; and I tremble at the omens of your late 
and present ailing habits and shattered health. You 
miscalculate matters widely, when you forbid my 
waiting on you, lest it should hurt my worldly con- 
cerns. My small scale of farming is exceedingly more 
Simple and easy than what you have lately seen at 
Moreham Mains. But be that as it may, the heart of 
the man, and the fancy of the poet, are the two grand 
considerations for which 1 live : if miry ridges and 
dirty dunghills are to engross the best part of the 
functions of my soul immortal, 1 had better been a 
rook or a magpie at once, and then 1 should not have 
been plagued with any ideas superior to breaking of 
elods, and picking up grubs : not to mention barn- 
door cocks or mallards, creatures with which 1 could 
almost exchange lives at any time — If you continue so 
deaf, I am afraid a visit will be no great pleasure to 
either of us ; but if 1 hear you are got so well again as 
to be able to relish conversation, look you to it, Mad- 
am, for I will make my threatenings goeH. I am to be 
at the new-year day fair of Ayr, and oy a rl that is 
s acred in the word Friend ! 1 will come and see you. 



Your meeting, which you so well describe, with your 
old school-fellow and friend, was truly interesting. 
Out upon the ways of the world ! — They spoil these 
"social offsprings of the heart." Two veterans of 
the " men of the world" would have met with little 
more heart-workings than two old hacks worn out on 
the road. Apropos, is not the Scotch phrase, " Auld 
.ang syne," exceedingly expressive i There is an old 

•* Thialetter was sent to the publisher of some news- 
paper, probably the publisher of the Edinburgh Eve- 
ning Courant. 



song and tune which has often thrilled through my 
soul. You know 1 am an enthusiast in old Scotch 
songs : I shall give you the verses on the other sheet, 
as 1 suppose Mr. Kerr will save you the postage.* 

Light he the turf on the breast of the Heaven-inspired 
poet who composed this glorious fragment ! There is 
more of the fire of native genius in it than half a dozen 
of modern English Bacchanalians. Now I am on my 
hobby-horse, 1 cannot help inserting two other stan- 
zas which please me mightily. j 



No. LXI. 



TO MISS DAVIES. 

A young lady who had heard he had been making a 
Ballad on her, enclosing that Ballad. 

December, 1788. 
MADAM, 

1 understand my very worthy neighbour, Mr. Rid- 
dle, has informed you that I have made you the suh. 
ject of some verses. There is something so provoking 
in the idea of being the burden of a ballad, that I do not 
think Job or Moses, though such patterns of patience 
and meekness, could have resisted the curiosity to 
know what that ballad was : so my worthy friend has 
done me a mischief, which, 1 dare say, he never in- 
tended ; and reduced me to the unfortunate alterna- 
tive of leaving your curiosity ungratified, or else dis- 
gusting you with foolish verses, the unfinished produc- 
tion of a random moment, and never meant to have 
met your ear. I have heard or read somewhere of a 
gentleman, who had some genius, much eccentricity, 
and very considerable dexterity with his pencil. In 
the accidental group of life into which one is thrown, 
wherever this gentleman met with a character in a 
more than ordinary degree congenial to his heart, he 
used to steal a sketch ofthe face, merely, as he said, as 
a nota bene to point out the agreeable recollection to 
his memory. What this gentleman's pencil was to 
him, is my muse to me : and the verses I do myself 
the honour to seed you are a memento exactly of th 
same kind that he indulged in. 

It may be more owing to the fastidiousness of m. 
caprice, than the delicacy of my taste, but I am so of 
ten tired, disgusted, and hurt, with the insipidity, af 
fectation, and pride of mankind, that when I meet •*itk 
a person " alter my own heart," I positively fee; 
what an orthodox protestant would call a species of 
idolatry, which acts on my fancy like inspiration ; 
and I can no more desist rhyming on the impulse, than 
an Eolian harp can refuse its tones to the streaming 
air. A distich or two would be the consequence, 
though the object which hit m> fancy were gray-beard- 
ed age : hut where my theme is youth and beauty, a 
young lady whose personal charms, wit, and Benti- 
irient, are equally striking and unaffected, by heavens I 
though I had lived threescore years a married man, 
and threescore years before I was a married man, my 
imagination would hallow the very idea ; and I am 
truly sorry that the enclosed stanzas have done such 
poor justice to such a subject. 



No. LXII. 

FROM MR. G. BURNS. 

Mossgiel, 1st Jan. 178& 
DEAR BROTHER, . 

I have just finished my new-year's-day breakfast in 
the usual form, which naturally makes me call to 

* Here follows the song of Auld lang syne, as printed 
in the poems. E. 

1 Here followed the song, My Bonnie Mary. 



so 



LETTERS. 



mind the days of former years, and the society in 
Which we used to begin them : and when I look at our 
family vicissitudes, 'thro' the dark postern of time 
Jong elapsed," I cannot help remarking to you, my 
dear brother, how good tire God of Seasons is to us, 
and that, however some clouds may seem to lower over 
the portion of time before us, we have great reason to 
hope that all will turn out well. 

Your mother and sisters, with Robert the second, 
join me in the compliments of the season to you and 
.Mrs. Burns, and beg you will remember us in the same 
manner to William, the first time you see him. 

I am, dear brother, yours, 
GILBERT BURNS. 



No. LXIII. 

TOMRS.DUNLOP. 
Ellisland, New-Year -Day Morning. 
This, dear Madam, ia a morning of wishes ; and 
would to God that I came under the apostle James's 
description ! — the prayer of a righteous man avuileth 
much. In that case, Madam, you should welcome in 
a year full of blessings : every thing that obstructs or 
disturbs tranquillity and self-enjoyment, should be 
removed, and every pleasure that frail humanity can 
taste should be yonra. I own myself so little a presby- 
terian, that 1 approve of set times and seasons of more 
than ordinary acts of devotion, for breaking in on that 
habituated routine of life and thought which is so apt to 
reduce our existence to a kind of instinct, or even 
lometimes, and with some minds, to a state very little 
•uperior to mere machinery. 

This day, the first Sunday of May, a breezy blue- 
ekyed noon, some lime about the beginning, and a hoary 
morning and calm sunny day about the end of autumn ; 
— these, tim out of mind, have been with me a kind of 
holiday. 



I believe I owe this to that glorious paper in the Spec- 
tator, " The Vision of Mirza ;" a piece that struck my 
young fancy before I was capable of fixing an idea to 
a word of three syllables, " On the fifth day of the 
moon, which, according to the custom of my forefa- 
thers, I always keep holy, after having washed my- 
self, and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended 
the high hill of Bagdat, in order to pass the rest of the 
day in meditation and prayer." 

We know nothing, or next to nothing, of the sub- 
itance or structure of our souls, so cannot account for 
those seeming caprices in them, that one should be 
particularly pleased with this thing, or struck with 
that, which, on minds of a different cast, makes no ex- 
traordinary impression. I have some favourite flow- 
ers in spring, among which are the mountain-daisy, 
the hare-bell, the fox-glove, the wild brier-rose, the 
budding birch, and the hoary-hawthorn, that I view 
and, hang over with particular delight. I never heard 
the loud solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer 
noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of gri.y 
plover in an autumnal morning, without feeling an ele- 
vation of soul like the enlhsiasm of devotion or poetry. 
Tell me, my dear friend, to what can this he owing. 
Are we a piece of machinery, which, like the Eolian 
harp passive, takes the impression of the passing acci- 
dent ? Or do these workings argue something within 
us above the trodden clod? I own myself partial to 
such proofs of those awful and important realities — a 
God that made all things — man's immaterial and im- 
mortal nature — and a world of weal or wo beyond 
death amHhe grave. 



No. LX1T, 

TO DR. MOORE. 

Ellisland. near Dumfries, 4th Jan. 1789. 
SIR, 

As often aaT think of writing to you, which has been 
three or four times every week these six months, it 
gives me something so like a look of an ordinary sized 
statue offering at a conversation with the Rhodian col- 
ossus, that my mind misgivesme, and theariair always 
miscarries somewhere between purpose and resolve. I 
have, at last, got some business with you, and busi- 
ness-letters are" written bv the style-book. I say my 
business is with you, Sir, for you never had any with 
me, except the business that benevolence has in the 
mansion of poTei ty. 

The character and employment of a poet were for- 
merly my pleasure, but are now my pride. I know that 
a very great deal of my late eclat was owing to the 
singularity of my situation, and the honest prejudice 
of Scotsmen ; but still, as I said in the preface to my 
first edition, 1 do loolt upon myself as haviug some 
pretensions from Nature to the poetic character. I 
have not a doubt but the knack, the aptitude to learn 
the Muses' trade, is a gift oeslowed by Him, "who 
forms the secret bias of the soul ;"— but 1 as firmly be- 
lieve, that excellence in the profession is the fruit of 
industry, labour, attention, .and pains. At least 1 am 
resolved to try my doctrine by the test. of experience. 
Another appearance from the press I put off to a very 
distant day, a day that may never arrive — but poesy I 
am determined to prosecute with all my vigour. Na- 
ture has given very few, if any, of the profession, the 
talents of shining in every species of composition. I 
shall try (for until trial it is impossible to know) wheth- 
er she lias qualified me to shine in any one. The worst 
of it is, by the time one has finished a piece, it has been 
so often viewed and reviewed before the mentil eye, 
that one loses, in a good measure, the powers of criti- 
cal discrimination. Here the best criterion 1 know is 
a friend — not only of abilities to judge, but with good- 
nature enough, like a prudent teacher with a young 
learner, to praise, perhaps, a little more than is exact- 
ly just, lest the thin-Skiuued animal fall into that most 
deplorable of all poetic diseases— heart-breaking des- 
pondency of himself. Dare I, Sir, already immensely 
indebted to your goodness, ask the additional obliga- 
tion of your, being that friend to me ? I enclose you an 
essay of mine hi a walk of poesy to me entirely new ; 
! mean the epistle addressed to R. G«. Esq, or Robert 
Graham, of Fintry, Esq. a gentleman of uncommon 
worth, to whom 1 lie under very great ot ligations. The 
story of the poem, like most of my poems, is connected 
with my own story ; and to give you the one I must 
give you something of the other. I cpnnot boast of— 



I believe T shall, in whole, 100/. copy-right included, 
clear about iOOl. some little odds; and even part ot 
this depends upon what the gentleman has yet to settle 
with me. I give you this information, because you did 
me the honour to interest yourself much in my wel 
fare. 



To give the rest of my story in brief, I have married 
" my Jean," and taken a farm : with the first step, I 
have every day more and more reason to be satisfied, 
with the hist, it is rather the reverse. I have a younger 
brothel who supports my aged mother; another still 
younger brother, and three sisters, in a farm. On my 
last return from Edinburgh, it cost me about 180Z. to 
save them from ruin. Not that I have lost so much — I 
only interposed between my brother and his impend 
ing fate by the loan of so much. I give myself no aim 
on this, for it was mere selfishness on my part : I wai 
conscious that the wrong scale of the balance was 
pretty heavily charged ; and I thought that throwing a 
little filial piety, and fraternal affection, into the scale 
in my favour, might help to smooth matters at the 



LETTERS. 



87 



frond reckoning. There is still one thing would make 
my circumstances quite easy: I have an excise-officer's 
commission, and I live in the midst of a country divis- 
ion. My request to Mr. Graham, who is one of the 
commissioners of excise, was if in his power, to pro- 
cure me that division. If I were very sanguine, I 
might hope that some of my great patrons might pro- 
cure me a treasury warrant for supervisor, surveyor- 
genera], &c. 



Thus secure of a livelihood, " to thee, sweet poe 
try, delightful maid 1" I would consecrate my future 
days. 



No. LXV. 

TO PROFESSOR D. STEWART. 

Ellisland, near Dumfries, QOtfi Jan. 1789. 
SIR, 

The enclosed sealed packet I sent to Edinburgh a 
few days after I had the happiness of meeting you in 
Ayrshire, but you were gone for the Continent. 1 have 
added a few more of my productions, those for which I 
am indebted to the Nithsdale Muses. The pieces in- 
scribed to R. G. Esq. is a copy of verses I sent Mr. 
Graham, of Fintry, accompanying a request for his 
assistance in a matter, to me, of very great moment. 
To that gentleman I am already doubly indebted, for 
deeds of kindness of serious import to my dearest in- 
terests, done in a manner grateful to the delicate feel- 
ings of sensibility. This poem is a species of composi- 
tion new to me ; but 1 do not intend it shall be my last 
essay of the kind, as you will see by the " Poet's Pro- 
gress." These fragments, if my design succeeds, are 
but a small part of the intended whole. I propose it 
shall be the work of my utmost exertions ripened by 
years : of course I do not wish it much known. The 
fragment, beginning "A little, upright, tart, pert, 1 ' 
&c. I nave riot shown to man living, till now I send it 
you. It forms the postulata, the axioms, the defini- 
tion of a character, which, if it appear at all, shall be 
pleased in a variety of lights. This particular part 1 
send you merely as a sample of my hand at portrait- 
sketching ; but lest idle conjecture should pretend to 
point out the original, please let it be for your single, 
sole inspection. 

Need I make any apology for this trouble to a gen- 
tleman who has treated me with such marked benevo- 
lence and peculiar kindness ; who has entered into my 
interests with so muth zeal, and on whose critical 
decisions I can so fully depend ? A poet as I am 
by trade, these decisions to me are of the last conse- 
quence. My late transient acquaintance among some 
of the mere rank and file of greatness, I resign with 
case ; but to the distinguished champions of genius and 
learning, I shall be ever ambitious of being known. 
The native genius and accurate discernment in Mr. 
Stewart's critical strictures ; the justness (iron justice, 
for he has no bowels of compassion for a poor poetic 
sinner) of Dr. Gregory's remarks, and the delicacy of 
Professor Dalzel's taste, I shall ever revere. I shall 
be in Edinburgh some time next month. 
I have the honour to be, Sir, 
Your highly oblige 1, 

And very humble servant, 

ROBERT BURNS. 



No. LXVI. 

TO BISHOP GEDDES. 

Ellisland, near Dumfries, 3d Feb. 1788. 
VENERABLE FATHER, 

As I am conscious, that wherever I am, you do me 
&• honour to interest yourself in my welfare, it gives 



me pleasure to inform yon that I am here at last sta- 
tionary in the serious business of life, and have now not 
only the retired leisure but the hearty inclination to 
attend to those great and important questions— 
what I am? where I am? and for what I am des- 
tined ? 

In that first concern, the conduct of the man, there 
was ever but one side on which I was habitually blame- 
able, and there I have secured myself in the way 
pointed out by Nature and Nature's God. I was sen- 
sible that, to so helpless a creature as a poor poet, a 
wife and family were encumbrances, which a species 
of prudence would bid him shun; but when the al- 
ternative was, being at eternal warfare with myself, 
on account of habitual follies to give them no worse 
name, which no general example, no licentious wit, no 
sophistical infidelity, would tome, ever justify, I must 
have been a fool to have hesitated, and a madman to 
have made another choice. 



In the affair of a livelihood, I think myself tolerably 
secure: I have good hopes of my farm; but should 
they fail, I have an excise commission, which on my 
simple petition, will at any time procure me bread. 
There is a certain stigma affixed to the character of 
an excise officer, but I do not intend to borrow honour 
from any profession ; and though the salary be com- 
paratively small, it is great to any thing that the first 
twenty-five years of my life taught me to expect. 



Thus, with a rational aim and method in life, you 
may easily guess, my reverend and much-honoured 
friend, that my characteristical trade is not forgotten. 
I am, if possible, more than ever an enthusiast to the 
Muses. I am determined to study man, and nature, 
and in that view incessantly ; and to try if the ripen- 
ing and corrections of years can enable me to produce 
something worth preserving. 

You will see in your book, which I beg your pardon 
for detaining so long, that I have been tuning my lyre 
on the banks of Nith. Some large poetic plans that arg 
floating in my imagination, or partly put in execution, 
I shall impart to you when I have the pleasure of meet- 
ing with you : which, if you are then in Edinburgh, I 
shall have about the beginning of March. 

That acquaintance, worthy Sir, with which you 
were pleased to honour me, you must still allow me to 
challenge ; for with whatever unconcern I give up my 
transient connexion with the merely great, I cannot 
lose the patronizing notice of the learned and good, 
without the bitterest regret. 



No. LXVII. 

FROM THE REV. P. CARFRAE. 

2d Jan. 1789. 
SIR, 

If you have lately seen Mrs. Dunlop, of Dunlop, you 
have certainly heard of the author of the verses which 
accompany this letter. He was a man highly res ct- 
able for every accomplishment and virtue which 
adorns the character of a man or a christian. To a 
great degree of literature, of taste, and poetic genius, 
was added an invincible modesty of temper, which 
prevented in a great degree his figuring in life, and con- 
fined the perfect knowledge of his character and tal- 
ents to a small circle of his chosen friends. He was 
untimely taken from us, a few weeks ago, by an in- 
flammatory fever, in the prime of life — beloved by all 
who enjoyed his acquaintance, and lamented by all 
who have any regard for virtue and genius. There is 
a wo pronounced in Scripture against the person whom 
all men speak well of ; if ever that wo fell upon the 
head of mortal man, it fell upon him. He has left be- 



88 



LETTERS. 



hind him a considerable number of compositions, 
chiefly poetical, sufficient, I imagine, to make a large 
octavo volume. In particular, two complete and reg- 
ular tragedies, a farce of three acts, and some smaller 
poems on different subjects. It falls to my share, who 
have lived in the most intimate and uninterrupted 
friendship with him from my youth upwards, to trans 
mit to you the verses he wrote on the publication of 
your incomparable poems. It is probable they were 
his last, as they were found in his scrutoire, folded up 
with the form of a letter addressed to you, and, I ima- 
gine were only prevented from being sent by himself, 
by that melancholy dispensation which we still be- 
moan. The verses themselves I will not pretend to 
criticise when writing to a gentleman whom i consider 
as entirely qualified 10 judge of their merit. They are 
the only verses he seems to have attempted in the Scot 
tish style : and I hesitate not to say, in general, that 
they will bring no dishonour on the Scottish muse ; — 
and allow melo add, that, if it is your opinion they 
are not unworthy of the author, and will be no discre- 
dit to you, it is the inclination of Mr. Mylne's friends 
that they should be immediately published in some pe- 
riodical work, to give the world a specimen of what may 
be expected from his performances in the poetic line, 
which, perhaps, will be afterwards published for the 
advantage of his family. 



I must beg the favour of a letter from you, acknow- 
ledging the receipt of this ; and to be allowed to sub- 
scribe myself, with great regard, 

Sir, your most obedient servant, 

P. CARFRAE. 



No. LXVIII. 

TOMRS.DUNLOP. 

Ellisla-nd ith March, 1789. 
Here am I, my honoured friend, returned safe from 
the capital. To a man who has a home, however 
humble or remote — if that home is like mine, the scene 
of domestic comfort — the bustle of Edinburgh will soon 
be a business of sickening disgust. 

" Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate you." 

When I must skulk into a comer, lest the rattling 
equipage of some gaping blockhead should mangle me 
in the mire, I am tempted to exclaim — " What merits 
has he had, or what demerit have I had, in some state 
of pre-existence, that he is ushered into this state of 
being with the sceptre of rule, and the key of riches in 
his puny fist, and 1 am kicked into the worid, the sport 
of folly, or the victim of pride?" I have read some- 
where of a monarch (in Spain I think it was,) who was 
go out of humour with the Ptolemean system of astron- 
omy, that he said, had he been of the Creator's coun- 
cil, he could have saved him a great tlea! of labour and 
absurdity. I will not defend this blasphemous speech ; 
but often, as 1 have glided with humble stealth through 
the pomp of Prince's street, it has suggested itself to 
me, as an improvement on the present human figure, 
that a man, in proportion to his own conceit of his 
consequence in the world, could have pushed out the 
longitude of his common size, as a snail pushes out 
his horns, or as we draw out a perspective. This tri- 
fling alternation, not to mention the prodigious saving 
it would be in the tear and wear of the neck and limb- 
sinews of many of his majesty's liege subjects, in the 
way of tossing the head and tiptoe-strutting, would 
evidently turn out avast advantage, in enabling us at 
once to adjust the ceremonials in making a bow, or 
making way to a great man, and that too within a se- 
cond of the precise spherical angle of reverence, or an 
inch of the particular point of respectful distance, 
which the important creature itself requires ; as a 
pleasuring glance at its towering altitude would deter- 
mine the affair like instinct. 



Yourare right, Madam, in your idea of poor Mylne ■ 
poem, which he has addressed tome. The piecehas 
a good deal of merit, but it has one great fault — it is. 
by far, too long. Besides, my success has encouraged 
such a shoal of ill-spawned monsters to crawl ii to pub- 
lic notice, under the title of Scottish Poets, that the 
very term Scottish Poety borders on the burlesque. — 
When I write to Mr. Carfrae, I shall advise him rath- 
er to try one of his deceased friend's English pieces. 
I am prodigiously hurried with my own matters, else 
! would have requested a perusal oiall Mylne's poetic 
performances ; and would have offered his friends my 
assistance in either selecting or correcting what would 
be proper for the press. W hat it is that occupies me 
so much, and perhaps a little oppresses my present 
spirits, shall (ill up a paragraph in some future letter. 
In the mean time, allow me to close this epistle with a 
few lines done by a friend of mine * " * *. 1 give you 
them, that, as you have seen the original, you may 
guess whether one or two alterations 1 have ventured 
to make in them, be any real improvement. 

Like the fair plant that from our touch withdraws, 
Shrink, mildly fearful, even from applause. 
Be ail a mother's fondest hope can dream, 
And all you are, my charming ****, seem, 
Straight as the fox glove, ere her bells disclose, 
Mild as the maiden-blushing hawthorn blows, 
Fair as the fairest of each lovely kind, 
Your form shall be the image of your mind ; 
Your manners shall so true your soul express, 
That all shall long to know the worth they guess ; 
Congenial hearts shall greet with kindred love. 
And even sick'ning envy must approve.* 



No. LXIX. 

TO THE REV. P. CARFRAE. 



REVEREND SIR, 

I do not recollect that I have ever felt a severer pang 
of shame, than on looking at the date of your obliging 
letter which accompanied Mr. Mylne's poem. 



I am much to blame : the honour Mr. Mylne has 
done me, greatly enhanced in its value by the en- 
dearing though melancholy circumstance of its being 
the last production of his muse, deserved a better re- 
turn. 

] have, as you hint, thought of sending a copy of the 
poem to seme periodical publication ; but, on second 
thoughts, 1 am afraid that, in the present case, it would 
be an improper step. My success, perhaps as much 
accidental as merited, has brought an inundation of 
nonsense, under the name of Scottish poetry. Sub- 
scription bills for Scottish poems have so dunned, and 
daily do dun, the public, that the very name is in dan- 
ger of contempt. For these reasons, if publishing any 
of Mr. Mylne's poems in a magazine, &c. be at all 
prudent, in my opinion, it certainly should not be a 
Scottish poem. The profits of the labours of a man of 
genius are, I hope, as honourable as any profits what 
ever; and Mr. Mylne's relations are most justly en- 
titled to that honest harvest which fate has denied him- 
self to reap. But let the friends of Mr. Mylne's fame 
(among whom I crave the honour of ranking myself) 
always keep in eye his respectability as a man and as 
a poet, and take no measure that, before the world 
knows any thing about him, would risk his name 
and character being classed with the fools of the 
times. 

* These beautiful lines, we have reason to believe, 
are the production of the lady to whom this letter it ad* 
\ drsssed. E. 



LETTERS. 



89 



I have, Sir, some experience of publishing, and the 
Way in which I would proceed with Mr. Mylne's 
poems ii this : I would publish in two or three English 
aud Scottish public papers, any one of his English 
poems which should, by private judges, be thought the 
most excellent, and mention it, at the same time, as 
one of the productions of a Lothian farmer, uf respect- 
able character, lately deceased, whose poems his 
friends had it an idea to publish soon, by subscription, 
for the sake of his numerous family : — not in pity to 
that family, but in justice to what his friends think 
the poetic merits of the deceased ; and to secure, in 
the most effectual manner, to those tender connex- 
ions, whose light it is, the pecuniary reward of those 
merits. 



No. LXX. 

TO DR. MOORE, 

Ellisland, 23<2 March, 1789. 
SIR, 

The gentlman who will deliver you this is a Mr. 
Nielson, a worthy clergyman in my neighbourhood, 
and a very particular acquaintance of mine. As I 
have troubled him with tins packet, I must turn him 
over to your goodness, to recompense him for it in a 
way in which he much needs your assistance, and 
where you can effectually serve him : — Mr. Nielson is 
on his way for France, to wait on his Grace of tiueens- 
berry, on some little business of a good deal of import- 
ance to him, and he wishes for your instructions re- 
specting the most eligible mode of travelling, &c. for 
him, when he has crossed the channel. I should not 
have dared to take this liberty with you, but thai 1 am 
told, by those who have the honour of your personal 
acquaintance, that to be a poor honest Scotchman, is 
a letter of recommendation to you, and that to have it 
in your power to serve such a character gives me much 
pleasure. 



The enclosed ode is a compliment to the memory of 
the late Mrs. "****, of «••«•••», You, probably, 
knew her personally, an honour of which 1 cannot 
boast ; but I spent my early years in her neighbour- 
hood, and among her servants and tenants, 1 know 
that she was detested with the most heartfelt cordiali- 
ty. However, in the particular part of her conduct 
which roused my poetie wrath, she was much less 
blameable. In January last, on my road to Ayrshire, 
I had put up at Bailie Whigham's in Sanquhar, the 
only tolerable inn in the place. The frost was keen, 
and the grim evening and howling- wind were ushering 
in a night of snow and drift. My horse and I were 
both so much fatigued with the labours of theday ; and 
just as my friend the Bailie and I were bidding defiance 
to the storm, over a smoking howl, in wheels the fu- 
neral pageantry of the great Mrs. •*«*», and poor I 
am forced to brave all the horrors of the tempestuous 
night, and jade my horse, my young favourite horse, 
whom I had just christened 1'egasus, twelve miles far- 
ther on, through the wildest moors and hills of Ayr- 
shire, to New Cumnock, the next inn. The powers of 
poesy and prose sink under me, when I would describe 
what I felt. Suffice it to say, that when a good fire at 
New Cumnock, had so far recovered my frozen sinews, 
1 sat down and wrote the enclosed ode.* 



1 was at Edinburgh lately, and settled finally wi 
Mr. Creech ; and 1 must own, that at last, he li 
been amicable and fair with me. 



No. LXXI. 

TO MR. HILL. 

Ellisland, 2d April, 1789. 
I will make no excuses, my dear Bibliopolus, (God 

• The ode enclosed is that printed in Poems, p. 
44. E. 



forgive me for murdering language,) that I hare 
down to write you on this vile paper. 



Ft is economy, Sir ; it is that cardinal virtue, pnu- 
dence ; so I beg you will sit down, and either compose 
or borrow a panegyric. If you are going to borrow, 
apply to 



to compose, or rather to compound something very 
clever on my remarkable frugality ; that I write to one 
of my most esteemed friends on this wretched paper, 
which was originally intended for the venal fist of 
some drunken exciseman, to take dirty notes in a 
miserable vault of an ale-cellar. 

O Frugality I thou mother of ten thousand blessings 
— thou cook of fat beef and dainty greens— thou manu- 
facturer of warm Shetland hose, and comfortable sur- 
touts! — thou old housewife, darning thy decayed 
stockings with thy ancient spectacles on thy aged nose ! 
— lead me, hand me, in thy clutching, palsied fist, up 
those heights, and through those thickets, hitherto in- 
accessible, and impervious to my anxious, weary feet ; 
— not those Parnassian crags, bleak and barren, where 
the hungry worshippers of fame are breathless, clam- 
bering, hanging between heaven and hell ; but those 
glittering cliffs of l J otosi, where the all-sufficient, all- 
powerful deity, holds his immediate court of joys and 
pleasures; where the sunny exposure of plenty, and 
the hot walls of profusion, produce those blissful fruits 
of luxury, exotics in this world, and natives of Para- 
dise '— Thou withered sybil, my sage conductress, ush- 
er me into the refulgent, adored presence I— The pow- 
er, splendid and potent as he now is, was once the pu- 
ling nursling of thy faithful care and tender arms! Call 
me thy son, thy cousin, thy kinsman, or favourite, 
and abjure the god, by the scenes of his infant years, 
no longer to repulse me as a stranger, or an alien, hut 
to favour me with his peculiar countenance and pro- 
tection 1 lie daily bestows his greatest kindnesses on 
the undeserving and the worthless--assure him that I 
bring ample documents of meritorious demerits ! 
Pledge yourself for me, that for the glorious cause of 
Lucre, 1 will do any thing — be any thing — but the 
horseleech of private oppression , or the vulture of 
public robbery ! 



Jut to descend from heroics, 



I want a. Shakspeare ; I want likewise an English 
Dictionary—Johnson's I suppose is best. In these and 
all my prose commissions, the cheapest is always the 
best for me. There is a small debt of honour that I 
owe Mr. Robert Cleghoin, in Saughton Mills, my 
worthy friend, and your well wisher. Please give 
him, and urge him to take it, the first time you see 
him, ten shillings worth of any thing you havetosell, 
and place it to my account. 

The library scheme that I mentioned to you is al- 
ready begun, under the direction of Captain Riddel. 
There is another in emulation of it going on at Close- 
burn, under the auspices of Mr. Monteith of Close- 
burn, which will be on a greater scale than ours. 
Capt. R. gave bia infant society a great many of his 
old books, else J had written you on that subject ; but 
one of these days, I shall trouble you with a communi- 
cation for the Munkland Friendly Society ;" — a copy 
of The Spectator, Mirror, and Lounger; Man of 
Feeling, Man of the Woild, Guthrie's Geographi- 
cal Grammar, with some religious pieces, will likewise 
be our first order. 

When I grow richer I wiH write to you on gilt pos,, 
to make amends for this sheet. At present eve:y 
guiuea has a five guinea errand with, 
My dear Sir, 
Your faithful, poor, but honest friend. 

R B. 



90 



LETTERS, 



No. LXXII. 

TO MRS. DUNLO;\ 

Ellisland, \th April, 1739. 
I no sooner hit on any poetic plan or fancy, but 1 
wish to send it to you : and it' knowing and reading 
these give half the pleasure to you, that communica- 
ting them to you gives to me, 1 am satisfied. 



I have a poetic whim in my head, which I at present 
dedicate, or rather inscribe, to the Right Hon. C.J. 
Fox : but how long that fancy may hold, 1 cannot say. 
A few of the first lines I have just rou^h-sketched. as 
follows.* 



On the 20th current I hope to have the honour of as- 
suring you, in person, how sincerely I am— 



No. LXXIII. 

TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

Ellisland, ith May, 1789. 
MY DEAR SIR, 

Your duty-free favour of the 26th April 1 received 
two clays ago ; 1 will not say I perused it with plea- 
sure ; that is the cold compliment of ceremony ; 1 pe- 
rused it, Sir, with delicious satisfaction — in short, it is 
such a letter, that not you nor your friend, but the le- 
gislature, by express proviso in their postage-laws, 
should frank. A letter informed with the soul of 
friendship is such an honour to human nature, that 
they should order it free ingress and egress to and from 
their bags and mails, as an encouragement and mark 
of distinction to supereminent virtue. 

I have just put the last hand to a little poem which I 
think will be something to your taste. One morning 
lately as I was out pretty early in the fields sowing 
some grass seeds, I heard the burst of a shot from a 
neighbouring plantation, and presently a poor little 
wounded hare came crippling by me. You will guess 
my indignation at the inhuman fellow who could shoot 
a hare atthis season, when they all of them have young 
ones. Indeed there is something in that business of 
destroying, for our sport, individuals in the animal 
creation that do not injure us materially, which 1 
could never reconcile to my ideas of virtue. 



On seeing a Fellow wound a Hire with a Shot, April 

1789. 

Inhuman man I curse on thy barb'rous art, 

And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye : 

May never pity s joth thee with a sigh, 

Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart ! 

Go live, poor wanderer of t he wood and field 
The bitter little that of life remains : 
No more the thickening brakes or verdant plains, 

To thee a home, or food, or pastime yield. 

Seek, mangled innocent, some wonted form, 
That wonted form, alas ! thy dying bed, 
The sheltering rushes whistling o'er thy head, 

The cold earth with thy blood-stained bosom 



* Here was copied the Fragment inscribed to C. J. 
Fox. Sea Poems, p. 81. 



Perhaps a mother's anguish adds its w»; 

The playful pair crowd fondly by thy side ; 

Ah ! helpless nurslings, who will now provide 
That life a mother only can bestow. 

Oft as by winding Nith, I, musing, wait 
The sober eve, or hail the cheerful dawn, 
I'll miss thee sporting o'er the dewy lawn, 

And curse the ruthless wretch, and mourn thy 
hapless fate. 

Let me know how you like my poem. I am doubtful 
whether it would not be an improvement to keep out 
the last stanza but one altogether. 

C is a glorious production of the Author of 

man. You, he, and the noble Colonel of the C 
F— — are to me 

" Dear as the ruddy drops which warm my breast." 

1 have a good mind to make verses on you all, to the 
tune of " Three guid fellows ayont the glen." 



No. LXXIV. 

The poem in the preceding letter had also been sent by 
our Bard to Dr. Gregory for his criticism. The fol- 
lowing is that gentleman's reply. 

FROM DR. GREGORY. 

Edinburgh, 2d June, 1789. 
DKAR SIR, 

I take the first leisure hour I could command, to 
thank you for your letter, and the copy of verses en- 
closed in it. As there is real poetic merit, I mean both 
funcy and tenderness, and some happy expressions in 
them, I think they well deserve that you should revise 
them carefully and polish them to the utmost. This I 
am sure you can do if you please, for you have great 
command both of expressoii and of rhymes : and you 
may judge from the two last pieces of Mrs. Hunter's 
poetry that I gave you, how much correctness and high 
polish enhance the value of such compositions. As you 
desire it, I shall, with great freedom, give you my 
most rignro s criticisms on your verses. I wish you 
would give me another edition of them, much amended, 
and I will send it to Mrs. Hunter, who I am sure will 
have much pleasure in reading it. Pray give me like- 
wise for mvself, and her too, a copv (as much amend- 
ed as you please) of the Water Fowl on Lich T,,rit. 

Ttie Wounded Hare, is a pretty good subject ; but 
the measure or stanza you have chosen for it, is not a 
gjod one ; it does nolftow well ; and the rhyme of the 
fourth linn is almost lost by its distance from the first, 
and the two interposed, close rhymes. If I were you, 
I would put it into a different stanza yet. 

Stanza 1. The execrations in the first two lines 
are too slronj or coarse ; but they may pass. "Mur- 
der-aiming is a had compound epithet, and not very 
intelligible. " Blood-stained," in stanza iii. line 4. 
has the same fault : Bte di'ig bosom is infinitely bet- 
ter. You have accustomed yourself to such epithets, 
and have no notion how skiff and quaint they appear 
to others, anil how incongruous with poetic fancy and 
lender sentiments. Suppose Pope had written, " Why 
that hluod-stained bosom gored," how would you have 
liked it i Form is neither a poetic, nor a dignified, 
nor a plain common word : it is a mere sportsman's 
word ; unsuitable to pathetic or serious poetry. 

" Mangled" is a coarse word. " [nnocent," in this 
sense, is a nursery word, but both may pass. 

Stanza 4. " Who will now provide that life a moth- 
er only can bestow?" will not do at all : it is not 
jgrararaar — it is not intelligible. Do you mean, "pro. 



LETTERS. 



91 



Tide for that life which the mother had bestowed and 
used to provide for?" 

There waa a ridiculous siip of the pen, " Feeling" 
(f suppose) for " Fellow," in the title of your copy of 
verses ; but even fellow would be wrong'; it is Wit a 
colloquial and vulgar word, unsuitable to your senti- 
ments. " Shot" is improper too. On seeing a jwson 
(or a sportsman) wound a hare.; it is needless to add 
with what weapon : but if you think otherwise, you 
should say, with, a fowling piece. 

Let me see you when you come to town, and I will 
•how you some more of Mrs. Hunter's poems.* 



No. LXXV. 

TO MR.M'AULEY, OF DUMBARTON. 

1th June, 1789. 
DEAR SIR, 

Though I am not without my fears respecting my 
fate, at that grand, universal inquest of right and 
wrong, commonly called The Last Day, yet I trust 
there is one sin, which that arch vagabond, Satan, 
who I understand is to be king's evidence, cannot 
throw in my teeth, I mean ingratitude. There is a 
certain pretty large quanfnn of kindness, forwr ; ch 1 
remain, and from inability, 1 fear must still remain, 
your debtor ; but, though unable to repay the debt, I 
assure you, Sir, I shad ever warmly remember the ob- 
ligation. Itgives me the sincerest pleasurs to hear, by 
my old acquaintance, Mr. Kennedy, that you are, in 
immortal Allan's language, "Hale and weel, and liv- 
ing ;" and that your charming family are well, and 
promising to be an amiable and respectable addition to 
the company of performers, whom the great Manager 
of the drama of Man is bringing into action for the 
succeeding age. 

With respect to my welfare, a subject in which you 
once warmly and effectively interested yourself, I am 
here in my old way, holding my plough, marking the 
growth of my corn, or the health of my dairy ; and at 
times sauntering by the delightful windings of the 
Nith, on the margin of which I have built my humble 
domicile, praying for seasonable weather, or holding 
an intrigue with the muses, the only gipsies with whura 
] have now any intercourse. As 1 am entered into the 
holy state of matrimony, I trust my face is turned com- 
pletely Zionward; and as it is a rule with all honest 
fellows to repeat no grievances, I hope that the little 
poetic licenses of former days will of course fall under 
the oblivious influence of some good-natured statute of 
celestial proscription. In my family devotion, which 
like a good presbyterian, 1 occasioiudly give to my 
househuld folks, 1 am extremely fond of the psalms, 
" Let not the errors of my youth," 4c. and that other, 
" Lo, children are Cod's heritage'" &c. ; in which last, 
Mrs. Burns, who, by the by, has a glorious " wood- 
note wild" at either old song or psalmody, joins me 
with the pathos of Handel's Messiah. 



* It must be admitted, that this criticism is not more 
distinguished by its good sense, than by its freedom 
from ceremony. It is impossible not to smile at the 
manner in which the poet may be supposed to have re- 
ceived it. In fact, it appears, as the sailors say, to 
have thrown him quite aback. In a letter which he 

wrote soon after, he says, " Dr. G is a good 

man. hut he crucifies me." — And again, " I believe in 

the iron justice of Dr. G ;" but, like the devib, " I 

believe and tremble." However, he profited by these 
criticisms, as the reader will find by comparing the 
first edition of this piece with that published in p. 69 
of the Poems. 



No. LXXVI. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

EllUland, Zlsl June, 1789. 
DKaR MADAM, 

Will you take the effusions, the miserable effusions, 
of low spirits, just as they flow from their bitter spring? 
I know not of any particular cause for this worst of all 
my foes besetting me, but for some time my soul has 
been beclouded with a thickening atmosphere of evil 
imaginations and gloomy presages. 



Monday Evening. 
I have just heard * * * * give a sermon. He 
is a man famous for his benevolence, and I revere 
him ; but from such ideas of my Creator, good Lord, 
deliver me? Religion, my honoured friend, is surely 
a simple business, as it equally concerns the ignorant 
and the learned, the poor and the rich. That there is 
an incomprehensibly Great Being, to whom I owe my 
existence, and that he must be intimately acqaainted 
with the operations and progress of the internal ma- 
chinery, and consequent outward deportment of this 
creature which 1 think he has made : these are, I think, 
self evident propositions. That there is a real and 
eternal distinction between virtue and vice, and con- 
sequently, that I am an accountable creature; that 
from the seeming nature of the human mind, as well as 
from the evident imperfection, nay, positive injustice, 
in the administration of affairs, both in the natural and 
moral worlds, there must be a retributive scene of ex- 
istence beyond the grave— must, I think, be allowed by 
every one who will give himseif a moment's reflection. 
I will go farther, and affirm, that from the sublimity, 
excellence and purity, of bis doctrine and precepts, 
unparalleled by all the aggregated wisdom and learn- 
ing of many preceding ages, though, to appearance, he 
himself was the obscurest, and most illiterate of our 
species ; therefore Jesu3 Christ was from God. 



Whatever mitigates the woes, or increases the hap- 
piness of others, this is my criterion of goodness ; and 
whatever injures society at large, or any individual in 
it, this is my measure of iniquity. 

What think you, Madam, of my creed ? I trust that 
I have said nothing that will lessen me in the eya of 
one whose good opiouion I value almost next to the ap- 
probation of my own mind. 



No. LXVII. 



FROM DR. MOORE. 

Clifford-street, 10th Jane, 1789. 
DEAR SIR, 

I thank yon for the different communications you have 
made me of your occasional productions in manuscript, 
all of which have merit, and some of them merit of a 
different kind from what appears in the poems you 
have published. You ought, carefully to preserve all 
your occasional productions, to correct and improve 
them at your leisure ; and when you can select as many 
of these as will make a volume, publish it either at Ed- 
inburgh or London, by subscription ; on such an occa- 
sion, it may be in my power, as it is very much my in- 
clination, lo be of service to you. 

If I were to offer an opinion, it would be, that, in 
your future productions, yon Bhould abandon the Scot- 
tish stanza and dialect, and adopt the measure snd 
language of modern English peeiry. 

The stanza which you use in imitatica of Chritt 
kirk on the Green, with the tiresome repetition of 
'• that day," i3 fatiguing to English ears, and 1 should 
think not very agreeable to Scottish. 



92 



LETTERS. 



AH the fine satire and humour of your Holy Fair is 
lost on the English ; yet, without mure trouble to your- 
self, you could have conveyed the whole of them. The 
same is true of your other poems. In your Epistle to 

J. S. , the stanzas, from that beginning with this 

line, " This life, so far's I understand," to that which 
ends with — " Short while it grieves," are easy, flow- 
ing, gayly philosophical, and of Horatian elegance 
— the language is English, with a. Jew Scottish words, 
and some of those so harmonious as to add to the beau- 
ty ; for what poet would not prefer gloaming to twi 
eight i 

I imagine, that by careful keeping, and occasionally 
polishing and correcting those verses, which the Muse 
dictates, you will, within a year or two, have another 
volume as large, as the first, ready for the press : and 
this witliout diverting you from every proper atten- 
tion to the study and practice of husbandry, in which 
I understand you are very learned, and which I fancy 
you will choose to adhere to as a wife, while poetry 
amuses you from lime to time as a mistress. The 
former, like a prudent wife, must not show ill-hu- 
mour, although you retain a sneaking kindness to 
this agreeable gipsy, and pay her occasional visits, 
which in no manner alienates your heart from your 
lawful spouse, but tends on the contrary, to promote 
her interest. 

I desired Mr. Cadell to write to Mr. Creech to send 
you a copy of Zeluco. This perlormance ha9 had 
great success here ; but I shall be glad to have your 
opinion of it, because I value your opinion, and be- 
cause I know your are above saying what you do not 
think. 

I beg you will offer my best wishes to my very 
good friend, Mrs. Hamilton, who I understand is 
your neighbour. If she is as happy as 1 wish her, 
•he is happy enough. Make my compliments also 
to Mrs. Burns : and believe me to be, with sincere 
esteem, 

Dear Sir, yours, &c. 



No. LXXVIII. 

FROM MISS J. LITTLE. 



SIR, 



Loudon House, V2lh July, 1789. 



Though I have not the happiness of being personally 
acquainted with you, yet, amongst the number of those 
who have read and admired your publications, may 1 
be permitted to trouble you with this. You must know, 
Sir, I am somewhat in love with the Muses, though I 
cannot boast of any favours they have deigned to con- 
fer upon me as yet ; my situation in life has been very 
much against me as to that. I have spent some years 
in and about Eccelefechan (where my parents reside,) 
in the station of a servant, and am now come to Lou- 
don House, at presaut possessed by Mrs. H : she 

is daughter of Mrs Duulop of Duulop, whom I under- 
stand you are particularly acquainted with. .As I had 
the pleasure of perusing your poems, I felt a partiality 
for the author, which 1 should not have experienced 
had you been in a more dignified station. 1 wrote a 
few verses of address to you which I did not then think 
of ever presenting; but as fortune seems to have fa- 
voured me in this, by bringing me into a family, by 
whom you are as well known and much esteemed, and 
where perhaps I may have an opportunity of seeing 
you, I shall, in hopesof your future friendship, take 
the liberty to transcribe them. 



Fair fa' the honest rustic swain 
The pride o' a' our Scottish plain, 
'f hougie's us joy to hear thy strain, 

And notes sae sweet 
Old Ramsay's shade reviv'd again 

In thee we greet. 



Lov'd Thalia, that delightful muse 
Seem'd lang shut up as a recluse ; 
To all she did her aid refuse, 

Since Allan's day ; 
Till Burns arose, then did she chuse 

To grace his lay. 

To hear thy sang all ranks desire, 
Sae weel you strike the dormant lyre : 
Apollo with poetic fire 

Thy breast does warm , 
And critics silently admire 

Thy art to charm. 

Caesar and Luath weel can speak, 
'Tispity e'er their gabs should steek 
But into human nature keek, 

And knots unravel : 
To hear their lectures once a week, 

Nine miles I'd travel. 

The dedication to G. H. 

An unco bonnie homespun speech, 

Wi' winsome glee the heart can teach 

A better lesson, 
Than servile bards, who fawn and fleeOk 

Like beggar's messon. 

When slighted love becomes your theme. 
And women's faithless vows you blame ; 
With so much pathos you exclaim, 

la your Lament ; 
Butglanc'd by the most frigid dame, 

She would relent. 

The daisy too, ye sing wi' skill ; 
And weel ye praise the whisky gill ; 
In vain I blunt my feckless quill, 

Your fame to raise ; 
While echo sounds from ilka hill, 

To Burns's praise. 

Did Addison or Pope but hear, 

Or Sam, that critic most severe, 

A ploughboy sing with throat sae clear 

They, in a rage, 
Their works would a' in pieces tear, 

And curse your page. 

Sure Milton's eloquence were faint, 
The beauties of your verse to paint ; 
My rude unpolish'd strokes but taint 

Their brilliancy; 
Th' attempt would doubtless vex a saint, 

And wed may thee. 

The task I'll drop— with heart sincere 
To Heaven present my humble pray'r, 
That all the blessings mortals share, 

May be by turns 
Dispeivs'd by an indulgent care, 

To Robert Burns! 

Sir, I hope you will pardon my boldness in this, my 
hand trembles while 1 write to you, conscious of my 
unworthiness of what I would most earnestly solicit, 
viz. your favour and friendship; yet hoping you will 
show Yourself possessed of as much generosity and 



LETTERS. 



93 



nature as will prevent your exposing what may and such a variety of inteligence, that I can hardly 



justly be found liable to censure in this measure, 
•hall take the liberty to subscribe myself 



Your most obedient, humble servant, 

JANET LITTLE. 

P. S. If you would condescend to honour me with a 
few line9 from your hand, 1 would take it as a particu- 
lar favour ; and direct to meat Loudon House, near 
Gals to a. 



No. LXXIX. 



FROM MR. 



London, 5th August, 1789. 
MY DEAR SIR, 

Excuse me when I say, that the uncommon abilities 
which you possess must render your correspondence 
very acceptable to any one. i can assure you I am 
particularly proud of your partiality, and shall endea- 
vour, by every methed in my power to merit a continu- 
ance of your politeness. 



When you can spare a few moments, I should be 
proud of a letter from you, directed to me, Gerard- 
•treet, Soho. 



I cannot express my happiness sufficiently at the 
Instance of your attachment to my late inestimable 
friend, Bob Fergusson,* who was particularly inti- 
mate with myself and relations. While I recollect 
with pleasure his extraordinary talents, and many 
amiable qualities, it aflords me the gieatest consola- 
tion that I am honoured with the correspondence of 
his successor in the national simplicity of" his genius. 
That Mr. Burns ha« refined it in the art of poetry, 
must readily be admitted ; but notwithstanding many 
favourable representations, I am yet to learn that he 
Inherits his convivial powers. 

There was such a richness of conversation, such a 

Flentitude of fancy and attraction in him, that when 
call the happy period of our intercourse to my memo- 
ry, I feel myself in a state of delirium. 1 was then 
youngerthan him by eight or ten years, buthis manner 
was so felicitous, that he enraptured every persona- 
round him, and infused into the hearts of the young 
and the old the spirit and animation which operated 
on his own mind. 

I am, Dear Sir, yours, &c. 



No. LXXX. 



TO Mr. ****. 

In answer to the foregoing. 

MY DEAR SIR, 

The hurry of a farmer in this particular season, 
and the indolence of a poet at all limes and seasons, 
will, I hope, plead my excuse fur neglecting so long to 
answer your obliging letter of the 5th of August. 

That you have done well in quitting your laborious 
concern in**"* I do not doubt : the weighty reasons 
you mention were, I hope, very, deservedly, indeed, 
weighty ones, and your health is a matter of the last 
importance: but whether the remaining proprietois of 
the paper have also done well, is what 1 much doubt. 
The *"**, so far as I was a reader, exhibited such a 
brilliancy of point, such an elegance of paragraph, 

* The erection of a monument to him. 



onceive it possible to continue a daily paper i 
same degree of excellence; but, if there was a man, 
who had abilities equal to t'le task, that man's assist- 
ance the proprietors have lost. 



When I received your letter, I was transcribing for 
****, my letter to the magistrates of the Canongate 
Edinburgh, begging their permission to place a tomb- 
stone over poor Fergusson, and their edict, in conse- 
quence of my petition, but now I 6hall send them to 
* * * * I oor Fergusson ! If there be a life be- 
yond the grave, which I trust there is ; and if there be 
a good God presiding over all nature which I am 
sure there is, thou art now enjoying existence in 
a glorious world, where worth of the heart 
alone is distinction in the man; where riches, depri- 
ved of all their pleasure purchasing powers, return to 
their nattve sordid matter: where titles and honour 
are the disregarded reveries of an idle dream ; and 
where that heavy virtue, which is the negative conse- 
quence of steady dullness, and those thoughtless, 
though often destructive lollies, which are the unavoid- 
able aberrations of frail human nature, will be thrown 
into equal oblivion as if they had never been. 

Adieu, my dear Sir ! so soon as your present views 
and schemes are concentrated in an aim, I shall be 
glad to hear from you ; as your welfare and happiness 
is by no means a subject indifferent 

Yours, &c. 



No. LXXXI. 

TO MISS WILLIAMS. 



MADAM, 

Of the many problems in the nature of that wond«r 
ful creature, Man, that is one of the most extraordina- 
ry, that he shall goon from day to day, from week to 
week, or month to month, or perhaps from year to 
year, suffering a hundred times more in an hour from 
the impotent consequences of neglecting what we ought 
to do, than the very doing of it would cost him. 1 am 
deeply indebted to you, first from a most elegant poe- 
tic compliment ;* then for a polite obliging letter ; and 
lastly, for your excellent poem on the Slave-trade ; 
and yet, wretch that I am ! though the debts were 
debtsof honour, and the creditor a lady, I have put off, 
and put off, even the very acknowledgment of the obli- 
gation, until you must indeed be the very angel I take 
you for, if you can forgive me. 

Your poem I have read with the highest pleasure. I 
have a way, whenever 1 read a book, 1 mean a book in 
our own trade, Madam, a poetic one, and when it is 
my own property, that I take a pencil and mark at 
the ends of verses, or note on margins and odd paper, 
little criticisms of approbation or disapprobation as I 
peruse along. I will make no apology for presenting 
you with a few unconnected thoughts that occurred to 
me in my repeated perusals of your poem. I want to 
show you that I have honesty enough to tell you what I 
take to be truths, even when thty are not quite on the 
side of approbation ; and I do it in the firm faith, that 
you have equal greatness of mind to hear them with 
pleasure. 

I had lately the honour of a letter from Dr. Moore, 
where he tells me that he has sent me some books. 
They are not yet come to hand, but 1 hear they are on 
the way. 

Wishing you ail success in your progress in the path 
of fame ; and that you may equally escape the dan- 
ger of stumbling through incautious speed, or losing 
ground through loitering neglect. 

I have the honour to be, &c. 



See Mi 



th's Sonnet, page lOl.—ROt*., 



94 



LETTERS. 



No. LXXXII. 

PROM MISS WILLIAMS. 
DEAR SIR, mAu g ust, 1189. 

I do not lose a moment in returning you my sincere 
acknowledgments for your letter, and your criticism 
on my poem, which is a very flattering proof that you 
have read it with attention. I think your objections 
ar perfectly just, except in one instance. 



You have indeed been very profuse of panegyric on 
my little performance. A much less portion of ap- 
plause from you would have been gratifying to me ; 
since I think its value depends entirely upon the source 
from wheuce it proceeds— the incense of praise, like 
other incense, is more grateful from the quality than 
the quantity of the odour. 

I hope you still cultivate the pleasures of poetry, 
which are precious, even independent of the rewards 
of fame. Perhaps the most valuable property of po- 
etry is its power of disengaging the mind from world- 
ly cares, and leading the imagination to the richest 
springs of intellectual enjoyment ; since, however fre- 

rintly life may be chequered with gloomy scenes, 
se who truly love the Muse can always find one lit- 
tle path adorned with flowers and cheered by sun. 
shine. 



No. LXXXIII. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

Ellisland, 6th Sept. 1789. 
DEAR MADAM, 

I have mentioned, in my last, my appointment to the 
Excise, ajul the birth of little Frank, who, by the by, 
I trust will be no discredit to the honourable name of 
Wallace, as he has a fine manly countenance, and a 
figure that might do credit to a little fellow two months 
older ; and likewise an excellent good temper, though, 
when he pleases, he has a pipe, only not quite so loud 
as the horn that his immortal namesake blew as a sig- 
nal to take out the pin of Stirling bridge. 

I had some time ago an epistle, part poetic, and 
part prosaic, from your poetess, Mrs. J. Little, a very 
ingenious but modest composition. I should have 
written her, as she requested, but for the hurrv of this 
new business. I have heard of her and her composi- 
tions in this country ; and 1 am happy to add, always 
to the honour of her character. The fact is, I know 
not well how to write to her : I should sit down to a 
sheet of paper that 1 knew not how to stain. I am no 
dab at fine-drawn letter-writing ; and except when 
prompted by friendship or gratitude, or, which hap- 
pens extremely rarely, inspired by the Muse (1 know 
not her name) that presides over epistolary writing, 1 
sit down, when necessitated to write, as I would sit 
down to beat hemp. 

Some parts of your letter of the 20th August struck 
me with the most melancholy concern for the state of 
your mind at present. 



Would I could write you a letter of comfort ! 1 
would sit down to it with as much pleasure as 1 would 
lo write an Epic poem of my own composition that 
should equal the Iliad. Religion, my dear friend, is 
the true comfort. A strong persuasion in a future 
stste of existence ; a proposition so obviously proba- 
ble, that, setting revelation aside, every nation and 
people, so far as investigation has reached, for at least 
near four thousand year9, have in some mode or other 
firmly believed it. In vaiu would we reason and pre- 



tend to doubt. I have myself done so to a vtry d»nn| 
pitch : but when I reflected that I was opposing lh< 
most ardent wishes, and the most darling hopes o 
good men, and flying in the face of all human belief, it 
ail ages, I was shocked at my own conduct. 

I know not whether I have ever sent you the follow 
ing lines, or if you have ever seen them ; but it is ont 
of my favourite quotations, which I keep constantly 
by me in my progress through life, in the language 01 
the book of Job, 

" Against the day of battle and of war"— 

spoken of religion. 

" 'Tis t/iie, my friend, thatstreaks our morning bright, 

'Tis this that gilds the horror of our night. 

When wealth forsakes us, and when friends are few ; 

When friends are faithless, or when foes pursue ; 

'Tis this that wards the blow, or stills the smart, 

Disarms affliction, or repels his dart ; 

Within the breast tids purest raptures rise, 

Bids smiling conscience spread her cloudless skies." 

1 have been very busy with Zeluco. The Doctor is 
so obliging as to request my opinion of it ; and I have 
been revolving in my mind sume kind of criticisms on 
novel-writing, but it is a depth beyond my research. I 
shall, however, digest ray thoughts on the subject as 
well as I can. Zeluco is a most sterling performance 

Farewell 1 Dieu, le bon Dieuje vous commend* 



No. LXXXIV. 

FROM DR. BLACKLOCK. 

Edinburgh, lith August, 1789. 
Dear Burns, thou brother of my heart, 
Both for thy virtues and thy art ; 
If art it may be call'd in thee, 
Which nature's bounty, large and free, 
With pleasure on thy breast diffuses, 
And warms thy soul with all the Muses. 
Whether to laugh with easy grace, 
Thy numbers move the sage's face, 
Or bid the softer passion rise, 
And ruthless souls with grief surprise, 
'Tis nature's voice distinctly felt, 
Through thee her organ, thus to melt. 



Most anxiously I wish to know, 
With thee of late how matters go ; 
How keeps thy much-loved Jean her health? 
What promises thy farm of wealth? 
Whether the muse persists to smile, 
And all thy anxious cares beguile? 
Whether bright fancy keeps alive ? 
And how thy darling infants thrive ? 

For me, with grief and sickness spent, 
Since I my journey homeward bent, 
Spirits depressed no more I mourn, 
But vigour, life, and health return, 
No more to gloomy thoughts a prey, 
I 9leep all night, and live all day ; 
By turns my book and friend enjoy, 
And thus my circling hours employ I 
Happy while yet these hours remain 
If Burns could join the cheerful train, 



LETTERS. 



95 



Vyith wonted seal, sincere and fervent, 
Salute once more hla humble servant, 

THO.BLACKLOCK. 



No. LXXXV. 

TO DR. BLaCKLOCK.— See Poems, p. 81. 



No. LXXXVI. 

TO R. GRAHAM, ESQ.. OF FINTRY. 

9lh December, 1789. 
SIR, 

I have a good while had a wish to trouble you with 
letter, and had certainly done it ere now — but for 
humiliating something that throws cold water on the 
resolution, as if one should say, " You have found Mr.. 
Graham a very powerful and kind friend indeed ; and 
that interest he is so kindly taking in your concerns, 
you ought, by every thing in your power to keep alive 
and cherish." Now though since God has thought 
proper to make one powerful ami another helpless, the 
connexion of obliger and obliged is all fair ; and though 
my being under your patronage is to me highly honour- 
able, yet, Sir, allow me to flatter myself, that as a poet 
and an honest man, you first interested yourself in my 
welfare, and principally as such still, you permit me 
lo approach you. 

I have found the excise-business go on a great deal 
smoother with me than I expected ; owing a good deal 
to the generous friendship of Mr. Mitchell, my collect- 
or, and the kind assistance of Mr. Findlatar; rny su- 
pervisor. I dare to be honest, and 1 fear no labour. 
Nor do 1 find my hurried life greatly inimical to my 
eorrespondence with the Muses. Their visits to me, 
indeed, audi believe to most of their acquaintance, 
like the visits of good angels, are short and far be- 
tween ; but 1 meet them now and then as I jog through 
the hills of Nilhsdale, just as 1 used to do on the banks of 
Ayr. 1 take the liberty to enclose you a few bagatelles, 
all of them the productions of my leisure thoughts in 
my excise rides. 

If you know or have ever seen Captain Grose the 
antiquarian, you will enter into any humour that is in 
the verses on him. Perhaps you have seen them before, 
as I sent them to a London newspaper. Though I dare 
say you have none of the solemn-league-and-covenant 
fire, which shone so conspicuous in Lord George Gor- 
don and the Kilmarnock weavers, yet I think you 
must have heard of Dr. M'Gill, one af the clergymen 
of Ayr, and his heretical book. God help him, poor 
man ! Though he is one of the worthiest, as well as 
one of the ablest of the whole priesthood of the Kirk 
of Scotland, in every sense of that ambiguous term, 
yet the poor Doctor and his numerous family are in 
imminent danger of being thrown out to the mercy 
of the winter-winds. The enclosed ballad on that bu- 
siness is, I confess, too local, but I laughed myself at 
some conceits in it, though 1 am convinced in my con- 
science that there are a good many heavy stanzas in it 
too. 

The election ballad, as you will see, alludes to the 
present canvass in our string of boroughs. I do not be- 
lieve there will be such a hard-run match in the whole 
general election.* 



I am too little a man to have any political attach- 
ments ; I am deeply indebted to, and have the warm- 

* This alludes to the contest for the borough of Dum- 
fries, between the Duke of Queensberry's interest and 
that of Sir James Johnstone. JS 



est veneration for, individuals of both parties ; but x 
man who has it in hi3 power to be the father of a coun- 
try, and who * * * * is a character that on« 
cannot speak of with patience. 

Sir J. J. does " what man can do ;" but yet I doubt 
his fate. 



No. LXXXVII. 

TO MRS. DUNLQP. 

Eaisland, 13th December, 17S9 
Many thanks, dear Madam, for your sheetful of 
rhymes. Though at present I am below the veriest 
prose, yet from you every thing pleases. I am groan- 
ing under the miseries of a diseased nervous system ; a 
system, the state of which is most conductive to our 
happiness — or the most productive of our misery. For 
now near three weeks 1 have been so ill with the ner- 
vous head ache, that I have been obliged to give up for 
a time my excise-books, being scarcely able to lift my 
head, much less lo ride once a week over ten muir 
parishes. What is man? To-day in the luxuriance 
of health, exulting in the enjoyment of existence ; in a 
few days, perhaps a few hours, loaded with conscious 
painful being, counting the tardy pace of the lingering 
moments by the repercussions ol anguish, and refusing 
or denied a comforter, day follows night, and night 
comes after day, only to curse him with life which 
gives him no pleasure ; and yet the awful, dark 
termination of that life is a something at which he 
recoils. 



" Tell us, ye dead ; 
Disclose the secret — 



ill none of you in pity 



What 'tis you are, and we must shortly be ! 
'lis no matter : 



A little time will make us learn'd as you are. 



Can it be possible, that when I resign this frail, fe- 
verish being, 1 shall still find myself in conscious exist- 
ence ! When the last gasp of agony has announced 
that 1 am no more to those that knew me, and the few 
who loved me : when the cold, stiffened, unconscious, 
ghastly corse is resigned into the earth, to be the prey 
of unsightly reptiles, and to become in time a trodden 
clod, shall I he yet warm in life, seeing and seen, enjoy- 
ing and enjoyed ? Ye venerable sages, and holy fia- 
mens, is their probability in your conjectures, truth in 
your stories, of another world beyond death ; or, are 
they all alike, baseless visions, and fabricated fables ? 
If there is another life, it must lie only for the just, the 
benevolent, the amiable, and the humane ; what a flat- 
tering idea, then, is a world to come I Would to God 
I as firmly believed it, as 1 ardently wish it ! There I 
should meet an aged parent, now at rest from the many 
buffetings of an evil world, against which he has so 
longand bravely struggled. There Bhould 1 meet the 
friend, the disinterested friend of my early life; the 
man who rejoiced to see me, because he loved me and 

could serve me. Muir ; thy weaknesses, were the 

aberrations of human nature, but thy heart glowed 
with every thing generous, manly and noble; and if 
ever emanation from the All good Being animated a 
human form, it is thine ! — There should 1, with speech* 
less agony of rapture, again recognize my lost, my ever 
dear Mary ! whose bosom was fraught with truth, hon- 
our, constancy, and love. 



My Mary, dear departed shade ! 

Wlure is thy place of heavenly rest? 
Seest thou thy lover lowly laid ; 

Hear'st thou the groans that read his breast? 



96 



LETTERS. 



Jesus Christ, thou amiablest of characters ! I truet 
thou art no imposter, and that thy revelation of bliss- 
ful scenes of existence beyond death a:id the grave, is 
uot one of the many impositions which time after time, 
have been palmed ou credulous mankind. 1 trust that 
in thee " shall all the families of the earth be blessed, ' ; 
by being yet connected together in a better world, 
where every tie that bound heart to heart, in this stale 
of existence, shall be, far beyond our present concep- 
tions, more endearing. 

lam a good deal inclined to think with those who 
maintain, tnat what are called nervous affections are 
in fact diseases of the mind. I cannot reason, I can- 
not think ; and but to you I would not venture to write 
any thing above an order to a cobbler. You have felt 
too much of the ills of life not to sympathize with a dis- 
eased wretch, who is impaired more than half of any 
faculties he possessed, your goodness will excuse this 
distracted scrawl, which the writer dare scarcely 
read, ami which he would throw into the fire were he 
able to write any thing better, or indeed any thing at 
all. 

Rumour told me something of a son of yours who 
was returned from the Kast or West-Indies. If you 
have gotten news of James or Anthony, it was cruel 
in you not to let me Know ; as I promise you on the 
gincetity of a man who is weary of one world and 
anxious about another, that scarce any thing could 
give me so much pleasure as to hear of any good thing 
befalling my honoured friend. 

If you have a minute's leisure, take up your pen in 
pity to le pauvre miserable. 



No. LXXXVIII. 

TO SIR JOHN SINCLAIR. 



Blrv » 

The followingcircumstance has, I believe, been omit- 
ted in the statistical account transmitted to you, of the 
parish of Dunscore, in Nithsdale. 1 beg leave to send 
it to to you, because it is new, and may be useful. How 
farit is deserving of a place in your patriotic publica 
lion, you are the best judge. 

To store the minds of the lower classes with useful 
knowledge is certainly of very great importance, both 
to them as individuals, and to society at large. Giving 
hem a turn for reading and reflection, is giving them 
a source of innocence and laudable amusement ; and, 
beisdes, raises them to a more dignified degree in the 
scale of rationality. Impressed with this idea, a gen- 
tleman in this parish, Robert Riddel, Esq. of Glenrid- 
del, set on foot a species of circulating library, on a 
plan so simple as to be practicable in any corner of the 
country ; and so useful as to deserve the notice of every 
country gentleman, who thinks the improvement of 
that port of his own species,' whom chance has thtown 
into the humble walks of the peasant and the artisan, a 
matter worthy his attention. 

Mr. Riddel got a number of his own tenants, and 
farming neighbours, to form themselves into a society 
for the purpose of having a library among themselves. 
They entered into a legal engagement to abide by it 
for three years : with a saving clause or two, in case 
of a removal to a distance, or of death, f'ach member, 
at his entry, paid five shillings ; and at each of their 
meetings, which were held ever fourth Saturday, six- 
pence more. With their entry money, and the credit 
which they took on the faith of their future funds, they 
laid in a tolerable stock of books, at the commence- 
ment. What authors ihey were to purchase, was al 
ways decided by a majority. At every meeting, all 
the books, under certain fines and forfeitures, by way 
oif penalty, were to be produced : and the members had 
their choice of the volumes in rotation. He whose 
name stood for that night first on the list, had his choiee 



of what volume he pleased in the collection; the se- 
cond had his choice after the first ; the thhd after the 
second ; and so on to the last. At next meeting, lie 
who had been first on the list at the preceding meeting 
was last at this ; he who had been second was first ; 
and so on through the whole three years. At the expi- 
ration of the engagement, the books were sold by auc- 
tion, but only among the members themselves ; and 
each man bad a share in the common stock, in money 
or in books, as he chose to be a purchaser or not. 

At the breaking up of this little society, which was 
formed under Mr. Riddle's patronage, what with bene- 
factions of books from him, and what with their own 
purchases, they had collected together upwards of one 
hundred and fifty volumes. It will easily be guessed, 
that a good deal of trash would be bought. Among 
the books, however, of this little library, were, Blair's 
Sermons, Robertson's History of Scotland, Hume's 
History oj the Stuarts, The Spectator, Idler, Adven- 
turer, Mirror, Lounger, Observer, Man of Feeling, 
Man of the World, Chrystal, Don Quixolle, Joseph 
Andrews, &c. A peasant who can read and enjoy 
such books, is certainly a much superior being to his 
neighbour, who perhaps stalks beside his team, very 
little removed except in shape, from the brutes he 
drives.* 

Wishing your patriotic exertions their so much-mer- 
ited success, 

I am, Sir, your humble servant, 

A PEASANT. 



No. LXXXIX. 

TO CHARLES SHARPE, ESQ,. OP HODDOM. 

Under a fictitious Signature, enclosing a ballad, 1790 
or 1791. 

It is true, Sir, you are a gentleman of rank and for- 
tune, and I am a poor devil ; you are a feather in the 
cap of society, and I am a very hobnail in his Bhoes ; 
yet I have the honour to belong to the same family 
with you, and ou that score I now address you. You 
will perhaps suspect that I am going to claim your af- 
finity with the ancient and honourable house of Kil- 
patrick : No, no, Sir : I cannot indeed be properly 
said to belong to any house, or even any province or 

* This letter is extracted from the third volume of 
Sir John Sinclair's Statistics, p. 598.- -It was enclosed 
to Sir John by Mr, Riddel himself, in the following letr 
ter, a. so printed there. 

" Sir John, I enclose you a letter, written by Mr. 
Burns, as an addition to the account of Dunscore parish. 
It contains an account of a small library which he was 
so good (at my desire) as to set on foot, in the barony ! 
of Monkland, or Friar's Carse, in this parish. As its ^ 
utility has been felt, particularly among the younger 
class of people, I think, thai if a similar plan were es- 
tablished in the different parishes of Scotland, it would 
tend greatly to the speedy improvement of the tenant 
ry, trades people, and work-people. Mr. Burns was 
so good as to take the whole charge of this small con- 
cern. He was treasurer, librarian, and censor, to this 
little society, who will long have a grateful sense of 
his public spirit and exertions for their improvement 
and information. 

I have the honour to be, Sir John, 
Yours, most sincerely, 

ROBERT RIDDEL." 
To Sir John Sinclair, of Ulster, Bart. 



LETTERS. 



97 



kingdom, as my mother, wno for many years was 
•{iou»e to a marching regiment, gave me into this had 
World, aooard the packet boat, somewhere between 
Donaghadee and Portpatrick. By our common fami- 
ly, I mean, Sir, the family of the Muses. 1 am a tid- 
dler ana a poet ; and you, I am told, play an exquisite 
Tiolin, and have a standard taste in Belles Lettera. 
The other day, a brother catgut gave a charming 
Scots air of your composition. If I was pleased with 
the tune, 1 was in raptures with the title you have giv- 
en it ; and, taking up the idea, I have spun it into 
three stanzas enclosed. Will you allow me, Sir, to 
present you them, as the dearest-offering that .a misbe- 
gotten son of poverty and rhyme has to give ; I nave a 
longing to take you by ths hand and unburden my 
heart by saying — "Sir, 1 honour you as a man who 
supports the dignity of human nature, amid an age 
when frivolity and avarice have, between them, de- 
based us below the brutes that perish!" but, alas, 
Sir! to me ynu are unapproachable* It is true, the 
Muses baptized me in Castilian streams, but the 
thoughtless gipsies forgot to give me a Name. As the 
sex have served many a good fellow, the Nine have 
given me a great deal of pleasure, but bewitching 
jades! they have beggared me. Would they but spare 
me a little of their cast linen ! were it only to put it in 
my power to say that 1 have a shin on my back ! But 
the idle wenches, like Solomon's lillies, •• they toil not 
neither do they spin ;" So 1 must e'en continue to tie 
my remnant of a cravat, like the hangman's rope 
round my naked throat, and coax my galligaskins to 
keep together their many coloured fragments. As to 
the affair of shoes, 1 have given that up. My pil- 
grimages in my ballad-trade from town to town, and on 
your stony-hearted turnpikes too, are what not even 
the hide of Job's Behemoth could bear. The coa 
on my back is no more: i cannot speak evil of the 
dead. It would be equally unhandsome and ungrate- 
ful to find fault with my old surtout, which so kindly 
supplies and concetto the. want of that coat. My hat 
indeed is a great favourite ; and though I got it liter- 
ally for an old song, I would not exchange it for the 
best beaver in Britain. I was, during several years, 
a kind of factotum servant to a clergyman, where I 
picked up a good many scraps of learning, particular- 
ly in some branches of mathematics. Whenever I 
feel inclined to rest myself on my way, I take my seat 
under a hedge, laying my poetic wallet on my one side, 
and my fiddle-case ct the other, and placing my hat 
between my legs, I cexiby means of its brim, or rather 
brims, go through Uw v.'bote do«rine of the Conic Sec- 
tions. 

However, Sir, dot.' lot ExSEislead you, as if I would 
interest your pity. Porluui has so much forsaken me, 
that she has taught roe to Ii7e without her ; and, amid 
all my rags and poverty, I am as independent, and 
much more happy than a monarch of the world. Ac- 
cording to the hackneyed metaphor, I value the several 
actors in the great drama ot life, simply as they act 
their parts. I can look on a worthless fellow of a 
duke with unqualified contempt ; and can regard an 
honest scavenger with sincere respect. As you, Sir, 
go through your roll with such distinguished merit, 
permit me to make one in the chorus of univer- 
sal applause, and assure you that, with the highest 
respect, 

1 have the honour to be, &c. 



We have gotten a set of very decent players Jost 
now. I have seen them an evening or two. David 
Campbell, in Ayr, wrote to me by the manager of the 
company, a Mr. Sutherland, who is a man of apparent 
worth. On New-Year day evening 1 gave him the 
following prologue/ which he spouted to his audience 
with applause — 

I can no nvn-e. — If once I was clear offthis**"* farm 
I should respire more at ease. 



No. XC. 

TO MR. GILBERT BURNS. 

Ellisland, 11 fA January, 17S0. 
DEAR BROTHER, 

I mean to take advantage of the frank, though I have 
not, in my present frame of mind, much appetite for 
exertion in writing. My nerves are in a **** state. 
I feel that horrid hypocondria pervading every atom 
of both body and soul. This farm has undone my en- 
joyment of myself. It is a ruinous affair on all hands. 
But let it go to **"* I I'll fight it out and be off with it. 

M 



No. XCI. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

Ellisland, 25th January, 1790. 
It has been owing to unremitted hurry ot business 
that I have not written to you. Madam, long ere now, 
My health is greatly better, and I now begin once more 
to share in satisfaction and enjoyment with the rest of 
my fellow-creatures. 

Many thanks, my much esteemed friend, for your 
kind letters ; but why will you make me run the risk 
of being contemptible and mercenary in my own eyes? 
When I pique myself on my independent spirit, I hop* 
it is neither poetic license, nor poetic rant ; and I am 
so flattered with the honour you have done me, in ma- 
king me your compeer in friendship and friendly cor- 
respondence, that I cannot without pain, and a degree 
of mortification, be reminded of the real inequality 
between our situations. 

Most sincerely do I rejoice with you, dear Madam, 
in the good news of Anthony. Not only your anxiety 
about his fate, but my own esteem for such a noble, 
warm-hearted, manly young fellow, in the little 1 had 
of his acquaintance, has interested me deeply in his 
fortunes. 

Falconer, the unfortunate author of the Shipwreck, 
which you so much admire, is no more. After witnes- 
sing the dreadful catastrophe he so feelingly describes 
in his poem, and after weathering many hard gales of 
fortune, he went to the bottom with the Aurora frigate '. 
I forget what part of Scotland had the honour of giv 
ing him birth, but he was the son of obscurity and mi* 
fortune. f He was one of those daring adventurer. 

* This prologue is printed in the Poems, p. 82. 

t Falconer was in early life a sea-boy, to use a wo» 
of Shakspeare, on board a man-of-war, in which caoa 
city he attracted the notice of Campbell, the auuior o; 
the satire on Dr. Johnson, entitled Lexiphanes, then 
purser of the ship. Campbell took him as his servant, 
and delighted in giving him instruction ; and when 
Falconer afterwards acquired celebrity, boasted of 
him as his scholar. The Editor had this information 
from a surgeon of a man-of-war, in 1777, who knew 
both Campbell and Falconer, and who himself perished 
soon after by shipwreck on the coast of America. 

Though the death of Falconer happened so lately as 
1770 or 1771, yet in the biography prefixed by Dr. An- 
derson to his works, in the complete edition of the 
Poets of Great Britain, it is said — " Of the family, 
birth-place, and education of William Falconer, there 
io memorials." On the authority already given, 
it may be mentioned, that he was a native of one of the 
towns on the coast of Fife : and that his parents whe 
had suffered some misfortunes, removed to one of the 
sea-ports of England, where they both died soon after, 
of an epidemic fever, leaving poor Falconer, then a 
boy, forlorn and destitute. In consequence of whl* 
he entered on board a man-of-war. These last eifc 
cumstancea are, however less certain. E. 



LETTERS 



•pirits which Scotland, beyond any other country, is 
remarkable for producing. Little does the fond moth- 
er think, as she hangs delighted over the sweet little 
leech at her bosom, where the poor fellow may hereaf- 
ter wander, and what may be his fate. I remember a 
stanza in an old Scottish ballad, which notwithstand- 
ing its rude simplicity, speaks feelingly to the heart : 

" Little did my mother think, 

That day she cradled me, 
What land 1 was to travel in, 

Or what death 1 should die !" 

Old Scottish songs are, you know, a favourite study 
and pursuit of mine; and now 1 am on that subject, 
allow me to give you two stanzas of another old simple 
ballad, which I am sure will please you. The catas- 
trophe of the piece is a poor ruined female lamenting 
her fate. She concludes with this pathetic wish : 

' O that my father had ne'er on me ami I'd ; 
O that my mother had ne'er to me sung ! 
D that my cradle had never been rock'd ; 
But that I had died when I was young 1 

O that the grave it were my bed ; 

My blankets were my winding sheet ; 
The clocks and the worms my bedfellows a' ; 

And O sae sound as I should sleep 1" 

I do not remember in all my reading to have met 
with any thing more truly the language of misery than 
the exclamation in the last line. Misery is like love ; 
to speak its language truly, the author must have felt 
it. 

I am every day expecting the doctor to give your 
little godson* the small pox. They are rife in the 
country, and I tremble for his fate. By the way 1 can- 
not help congratulating you on his looks and spirit. 
Every person who sees him acknowledges him to be 
the finest, handsomest child he has ever seen. lam 
myself delighted with the manly swell of his little chest, 
and a certain miniature dignity in the carriage of his 
head, and the glance of his fine black eye, which pro- 
mise the undaunted gallantry of an independent mind. 

I thought to have sent you some rhymes, but time 
forbids. I promise you poetry until you are tired of 
it, next time I have the honour of assuring you how 
truly I am, &c. 



KROM MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

28th January, 1790. 
In some instances it is reckoned unpardonable to 
quote any one's own words ; nut the value 1 have fur 
your friendship, nothing can more truly or more ele- 
gantly express than 

" Time but the impression stronger makes, 
As streams their channels deeper wear." 

Having written to you twice without having heard 
from you, I am apt to think my letters have miscar- 
ried. My conjecture is only framed upon the chapter 
of accidents turning up against me, as it too often does, 
in the trivial, and, 1 may with truth uld, the more im- 
portant affairs of life ; but I shall continue occasion- 
ally to inform you what is going on among the circle of 
jour friends in these parts, in these days of me 
ment, I have frequently heard your name proclaimed 
at the jovial board — under the roof of our hospitable 
friend at Stenhouse-mills ; there were no 

* The bard's second son, Francis. E. 



" Lingering momenta numbered with Care." 

I saw your Addriss to the New Year, in the Dura- 
fries Journal. Of your productions I shall say no- 
thing ; but my acquaintance allege that when yon* 
name is mentioned, which every man of celebrity mum 
know often happens, 1 am the champion, the Meuduza. 
against all snarling critics aud narrow minded reptile*, 
of whom a fiw on this planet do crawl. 

With best compliments to your wife, and her black- 
eyed sister, I remain 

"Voura, &»•. 



No. XCIII. 

TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

Ellivland, \3th February, 1790. 
I beg your pardon, my dear and much valued friend, 
for writing to you on this very unfashionable, (insight, 
ly sheet— 

" My poverty but not my will consents." 

But to make amends, since on modish post I hare 
none, except one poor widowed half sheet of gilt, which 
lies in my drawer among my plebeian foolscap pages, 
like the widow of a man of fashion, whom that impo- 
lite scoundrel, Necessity, has driven from Burgundy 
and line-apple, to a dish of Bohea, with the scandal- 
bearing help-mate of a village-priest; or a glass of 
whiskey-toddy, with the ruby-nosed yoke-fellow of a 
foot-patidbsg exciseman — I make a vow to enclose this 
sheet full of epistolary fragments in that my only scrap 
of gilt paper. 

1 am indeed your unworthy debtor for three friendly 
letters. I ought to have written to you long ere now, 
but it is a literal fact, I have scarcely a spare moment. 
It is not that I will not write to you ; Miss Burnet ie 
not more dear to her guardian angel, nor his grace the 
Duke of *'•*••»•** to the powers of***** than my 
friend Cunningham to me. It is not that I cannot 
write to you ; should you doobt it, take the following 
fragment w'nich was intended for you some time ago, 
and be convinced that 1 can mitithesizr. sentiment, and 
circumvolute periods, as well as any coiner of phrase 
in the regions of philology. 

December, 1789. 
MY DEAR CUNNINGHAM, 

Where are you? and what are you doing? Can 
yon be that son of levity who takes up a friendship as 
he lakes up a fashion ; or are you, like some other of 
the worthiest fellows in the world, the victim of indo- 
lence, laden with fetters of ever-increasing weight? 

What strange beings we are ! Since we have a por 
tion of conscious existence, equally capable of enjoy- 
ing pleasure, happiness, and rapture, or of suffering 
paid, wretchedness, and misery, it is surely worthy of 
an inquiry whether there be not such a thing as a sci- 
ence of life, whether method, economy, and fertility 
of expedients, be not applicable to enjoyment ; and 
whether there be not a want of dexterity in pleasure 
which renders our little scantling of happiness still 
less ; and a profuseness and intoxication in bliss, which 
teads to satiety, disgust, and self-abhorrence. There 
is not a doubt'but that health, talents, character, de- 
cent competency, respectable friends, are rea I substan- 
tial blessings ; and yet do we not daily see those who 
enjoy many or all of these good things, contrive, not- 
withstanding, to be as unhappy as others to whose lot 
few of them'have fallen : I believe one gres-t source 
of this mistake or misconduct i3 owing to a certain 
stimulus, with us called ambition, whieh goads us up 
the hill of life, not as we ascend other eminences, for 
the laudable curiosity of viewing an extended land- 
scape, but rather for the dishonest pride of looking 
down on others of our fellow-creatures seemingly di- 
minutive in humbler stations, &c. &c. 



LETTERS. 



Saturday, Wh February 1790. 

God help ine I I am now oblige. I to join 

" Night to day, and Saturday to the week." 

If mere be any truth in the orthodox faith of these 
churches, lam «*••* past redemption, and what is 
worse, to all eternity. 1 am deeply read in Bos- 
ton's fourfold State, Mirshal on Sana location, 
Guthrie's Trial of a Saving Interest, &c; but 
"there is no balm in Gilead, there is no physician 
there," forme; so I shall e'en turn Armenian, and 
trust to " sincere though imperfect obedience." 



Tuesday, 19th. 
Luckily forme I was prevented from the discussion 
of the knotty point at which I had just made a full stop. 
All my fears and cares are of this world : if there is 
another, an honest man has nothing to fear from it. I 
hate a man that wishes to be a Deist ; but, I fear 
every fair, unprejudiced inquirer must in some degree 
be a Sceptic. It is not that there are any very stagger- 
ing arguments against the immortality of man; but 
like electricity, phlogiston, &c. the subject is so invol- 
ved in darkness, that we want data to go upon. One 
thing frightens me much : that we are to live for ever, 
seems too good news to be true. That we are to enter 
a new scene of existence, where exempt from want and 
pain, we shall enjoy ourselves and our friends, without 
satiety or separation— how much should 1 be indebted 
to any one who could fully assure me that tins was cer- 
tain. 



My time is once more expired. I will write to Mr. 
Cleghorn soon. God bless him and all his concerns. 
And may all the powers that preside over conviviality 
and friendship, be present with all their kindest influ- 
ence, when the bearer of this, Mr. Syme, and you 
meet I I wish I could Mso make one. — I thruk we should 
be » * * * 

Finally, brethren, farewell ! Whatsoever things are 
lovely, whatsoever things are gentle, whatsoever things 
are charitable, whatsoever things are kind, think on 
these things, and think on 

ROBERT BURNS. 



No. XCIV. 

TO MR. HILL. 

Ellisland, 2d March, 1790. 
At a late meeting of the Monkland Friendly Socie- 
ty, it was resolved to augment their library by the fol- 
lowing books, which you are to send us as soon as pos- 
sible -.—The Mirror, The Lounger, Man of Feeling, 
Man of the World, (these for my own sake, 1 wish to 
have by the first carrier,) Knox's History of the Re 
formation ; Rue's History of the Rebellion in 1715; 
any good History of the Rebellion in 1745 ; a Display 
of the Sessalion Act and Testimony, by Mr. Uibb ; 
Hervey's Meditaions ; Beveridge's Thoughts; and 
another copy of Watson's Body of Divinity. 

I wrote to Mr. A. Masterton three or four months 
ago, to pay some money he owed me into your hands, 
and lately I wrote to you to the same purpose, but 
1 have heard from neither one nor other of you. 

In addition to the books I commissioned in my last, 
I want very much, An Index to the Excise Laws, or 
an Abridgment of all the ■Statutes now in force rela- 
tive to the Excise, by Jellineer Symons ; I want three 
ropies of this book : if it is "now to be had, cheap or 
dear, get it for me. An honest country neighbour of 
mine wants, too, A Family Bible, the larger the bet- 
ter, but second-handed, for he does not choose to give 



above ten shillings for the book. I want likewise for 
myself as you can pick them up, second-handed or 
cheap, copies of Otway's Dramatic Works, Ben Jon- 
snyi's, Dryden's, Congrive's, Wycherley's, Van- 
burgh's, Cibbrr's, or any Dramatic Works of the 
more modern Maclclin, Garriclc, Foote, Coleman, or 
Sheridan. A good copy too, of Moliere, in French, I 
much want. Any other good dramatic authors in that 
language I want also, but comic authors chieflv, though 
I should wish to have Racine, Corneille, and" Voltaire 
too. 1 am in no hurry for all, or any of these ; but 
if you accidentally meet with them very cheap, get 
them lor me. 

And now to quit the dry walk of business, how do 
you do, my dear friend ? and how is Mrs. Hill? I 
trust, if now and then not so elegantly handsome, at 
least as amiable, and sings as divinely as ever. My 
good wife, too has a charming "wood-note wild;" 
now could we four 



lam out of patience with this vile world for one 
thing. Mankind are by nature benevolent creatures. 
Except in a few scoundrelly instances, I do not think 
that avarice of the good things we chance to have, ia 
born with us ; but we are placed here amid so much 
nakedness, and hunger, and poverty, and want, that we 
are under a cursed necessity ol studying selfishness, in 
order that we may exist ! Still there are, in every 
age, a few souls, that all the wants and woes of this 
lift could debase to selfishness, or even to the necessa- 
ry alloy cf caution and prudence. If ever I am in dan- 
ger ol vanity, it is when I contemplate myself on this 
side ot my disposition and character. God knows I 
am no saint ; 1 have a whole host of follies and sing 
to answer for: out it 1 could, and I believe I do it as 
far as I can, I would wipe awav all tears from all eyes. 
Adieu I 



No. XCV. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

Ellisland, 19lh April, 1790. 
I have just now, my ever-honoured friend, enjoyed 
a very high luxury, in reading a paper of the Lounger. 
You know my national prejudice. I had often read 
and admired the Spectator, Adventurer, Rambler, 
and World: but still with a certain regret, that they 
were so thoroughly and entirely English. Alas I have I 
often said to myself, what are all the boasted advarta- 
ges which my country perhaps reaps from the union, 
that can counterbalance the annihilation of her inde- 
pendence, and even her very name ! I often repeat 
that couplet of my favourite poet, Goldsmith — 

" States of native liberty possess'd, 
Tho' very poor may yet be very bless'd." 

Nothing can reconcile me to the common terms, 
" English ambassador, English court, &c. And I am 
out of all patience to see that equivocal character, 
Hastings, impeached by '' the Commons of England." 
Tell me, my friend, is this weak prejudice ? I believe 
in my conscience such ideas as, "my country; her 
independence; her honour; the illustrious names 
that mark the history of my native land ;" &c. I be- 
lieve these, among your men of the world, men who ia 
fact guide for the most part and govern our world, are 
looked on as so many modifications of wrongheaded- 
ness. They know the use of bawling out such terms, 
to rouse or lead the rabble ; but for their own private 
use ; with almost all the able statesmen that ever ex- 
isted, or now exist, when they talkof right and wrong, 
they only mean proper and improper, and their mea- 
sure of conduct is, not what they ought, but what they 
dare. For the truth of this 1 shall not ransack the 
history of nations, but appeal to one of the ablest men 
that ever lived— the celebrated Earl of Chesterfield. In 
fact, a man who could thoroughly control his vice* 



100 



LETTERS. 



whenever they interfered with his interests, and who 
could completely put on the appearance of every virtue 
as it suited his purposes, is, on the Stanhopian plan, 
the perfect man; a man to lead nations. But are 
great abilities, complete without a flaw, and polished 
without a blemish, the standard of human excellence ? 
This is certainly the staunch opinion of men of the 
World ; but I call on honour, virtue, and worth to give 
the stygian doctrine a loud negative ! However, this 
must be allowed, that, if you abstract from man the 
idea of existence beyond the grave, then the true mea- 
sure of human conduct isproper and improper; Virtue 
and vice, as dispositions of ilie heart, are, in that case, 
of scarcely the same import and value to the world at 
large, as harmony and discord in the modifications of 
sound; and a delicate sense of honour, like a nice ear 
for music, though it may sometimes give the possessor 
an ecstacy unknown to the coarser organs of the herd, 
yet, considering the harsh gratings of inharmonic 
jars, in this ill-timed state of being, it is odds but the 
individual would be as happy, and certainly would be 
as much respected by the true judges of society, as it 
would then stand, without either a good ear or a good 
heart. 

You must know I have just met with the Mirror 
aiid Lounger for the first lime, and 1 am quite in rap- 
tures with them ; I should be glad to have your opinion 
of some of the papers. The one I have just read, 
Lounger, No. 61, has cost me more honest tears than 
any thing 1 have read ot a long time. M'Kenzie has 
been called the Addison of the Scots ; and, in my 
opinion, Addison would not be hurt at the comparison. 
If he has not Addison's exquisite humour, he as cer- 
tainly outdoes him in the tender and pathetic. His 
Man of Feeling, (but I am not counsel-learned in the 
laws of criticism,) I estimate as the first performance 
in its kind lever saw. From what book, moral, or 
even pious, will the susceptible young miud receive 
impressions more congenial to humanity and kindness, 
generosity and benevolence ; in short, more of all that 
ennobles the soul to herself, or endears her to others — 
than from the simple, affecting tale of poor liarley ? 

Still, with all my admiration of M'Kenzie's wri- 
tings, 1 do not know if they are the fittest reading for 
a youngman who is about to set out, as the phrase is, 
to make his way into life. Do not you think, Madam, 
thai among the few favoured of Heaven in the struc- 
ture of Iheir minds, (for such there certainly are,) 
there may be a purity, a tenderness, a dignity, an ele- 
gance of soul, which are of no use, nay, in some de- 
gree, absolutely disqualifying for the truly important 
business of making a man's way into life. If I am not 
much mistaken, my gallant young friend, A****" is 
very much under these disqualifications ; and for the 
young females of a family I could mention, well may 
they excite parental solicitude ; for I, a common ac- 
quaintance, or, as my vanity will have it, an humble 
friend, have often trembled "or a turn of mind which 
may render them eminently happy— or peculiarly mis- 
erable 1 

I have been manufacturing some verses lately ; but 
as I have got the most hurried season of excise-busi- 
ness over, I hope to have more leisure to transcribe any 
thing that may show how much 1 have the honour to 
be, Madam, yours, 8fc. 



No. XCVI. 

FROM MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

Edinburgh, ^5th May, 1789. 
MY DEAR BURNS, 

I am much indebted to you for your last friendly, 
elegant epistle, and it shall make a part of the vanity 
of my composition, to retain youi correspondence 
through life. It was remarkable your introducing the 
name of Miss Burnet, at a time when she was in such 
ill health : and 1 am sure it will grieve your gentle 
heart, to hear of her being in the last stage of a con- 



sumption. Alas ! that so much beauty, 
and virtue, should be nipped in the bud. Hers waa 
the smile of cheerfulness — of sensibility, not of allure- 
ment ; and her elegance of mauners corresponded with 
the purity and elevation of her miud. 

How does your friendly muse ? I am sure she still 
retains her affection for yon, and that you have many 
of her favours in your possession, which I have no; 
seen. I weary much to hear from you. 



I beseech you do not forget me. 



I most sincerely hope all your concerns in life pros- 
per, and that your roof tree enjoys the blessing of good 
health. All your friends here are well, among whom, 
and not the least, is your acquaintance, Cleghorn. As 
for myself, 1 am well, as far as *****"• will let a man 
be, but with these I am happy. 



When you meet with my very agreeable friend, J. 
Syme, give him a hearty squeeze, and bid God bless 
him. 

Is there any probability of your being soon in Edin 
burgh i 



No. XCVII. 



TO DR. MOORE. 



Dumfries, Excise-office, Uth July, 1790. 



IR, 



Coming into town this morning, to attend my duty 
in thi3 office, it being collection day, I met with a gen- 
tleman who tells me he is on his way to London ; so I 
take the opportunity of writing to you, as franking is 
at present under a temporary death. 1 shall have- 
some snatches of leisure through the day, amid our 
horrid business and bustle, and I shall improve them 
as well as 1 can ; but let my letter be as stupid as • 
* * *, as miscellaneous as a newspaper, 
as short as a hungry grace belore-meat, or as long as a 
law paper in the Douglass cause ; as ill-spelt as coun- 
Iry John's billet-doux, or as unsightly a scrawl as Bet- 
ty Byre-Mucker's answer to it — I hope, considering 
circumstances, you will forgive it ; and, as it will pu; 
you to no expense of postage, I shall have the less re- 
flection about it. 

I am sadly ungrateful in not returning you thanks 
f;r your most valuable present, Zeluco. In fact you 
are in same degree blameable for my neglect. You 
were pleased to express a wish for my opinion of the 
work, which so flattered me, that nothing less would 
serve my overweening fancy, than a formal criticism 
on the book. In fact, 1 have gravely planned a com- 
parative view of you, Fielding, Richardson, and Smol- 
let, in your differeut qualities and merits as novel wri- 
ters. This, 1 own, betrays my ridiculous vanity, and 
1 may probably never bring the business to bear ; but I 
am fond of the spirit young Elihu shows in the book of 
Job — '*And I said, I will also declare iny opinion." 
1 have quite disfigured my copy of (he book with my 
annotations. 1 never lake it up without at the same 
time taking my pencil, and marking with asterisms, 
parentheses, &c. wherever I meet with an original 
thought, a nervous remark on life and manners, a re- 
markably well turned period, or a character sketched 
with uncommon precision. 

Though I shall hardly think of fairly writing out my 
" Comparative View," I shall certainly trouble you 
with my remarks, such as they are. 

I have just received from my gentleman, that horrid 



LETTERS. 



101 



i in the book of Revelatiou- 
be no more 1" 



' That time shall ; didst, and must go out of it as all 
ked corse.* 



The little collection of sonnets have some charming 
poetry in them. If indeed ] am indebted to the fair au- 
thor for the book, and not, as I rather suspect, to a 
celebrated author of the other Sex, 1 should certainly 
nave written to the lady, with my grateful acknowl- 
edgments, and my own ideas of the comparative ex- 
cellence of her pieces. I would do this last not from 
any vanity of thinking that my remarks could be of 
much consequence to Mrs. Smith, but merely from my 
own feeling as an author, doing as ] would be done by. 



No. XCVIII. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

8th Aug. 1790. 
DEAR MADAM, 

After a Ion" day's toil, plague, and care, I sit down 
to write to you. Ask me not why 1 have delayed it so 
■-ong ? It was owing to hurry, indolence, and fifty oth- 
er things : in short, to any thing — but furgetfulness of 
la plus amiable de son s^xe. By the by, you are in- 
debted your best courtesy to me for this last compli- 
ment, as I pay it from my sincere conviction of its 
truth— a quality rather rare in compliments of these 
grinning, bowing, scraping times. 

Well, I hope writing to you will ease a little my 
troubled soul. Sorely has it been bruised to-day I A 
ci-devant friend of mine, and an intimate acquaint- 
ance of yours, has given my feelings a wound that I 
perceive will gangrene dangerously ere it cure. He 
has wounded my pride I 



No. XCIX. 



TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

Ellisland, 8th August, 1780. 
Forgive me my once dear, and ever dear friend, my 
seeming negligence. You cannot sit down and lancy 
the busy hie 1 lead. 

I laid down my goose feather to beat my brains for an 
apt simile, and had some thoughts of a country gran- 
inim at a family christening : a bride on the market 
day before her marriage I * * * * * 

........ a tavern- 

keeper at an election dinner ; &fc. &c. — but the resem- 
blance that hits my fancy best, is that blackguard 
miscreant, Satan, who roams about like a roaring 
lion, seeking, searching whom he may devour. How- 
ever, tossed about as i am, if 1 choose (and who would 
not choose) to bind down with the crampets of atten- 
tion the brazen foundation of integrity, 1 may rear 
up the superstructure of Independence, and from 
its daring turrets, bid defiance to the storms of fate. 
And is not this a "consummation devoutly to be 
wished I" 

" Thy spirit, Independence, let me share ; 

Lord of the lion heart and eagle-eve 1 
Thy steps 1 follow with my bosom bare, 

Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky 1 

Are not these noble verses? They are the introduc 
tion of Smoll't's Od' to Independence : if you have not 
seen the poem, 1 will send it to you. How wretched is 
the man that hangs on by the favours of the great. To 
shrink from every dignity of man. at the approach of a 
lordly piece of self-consequence, who amid all his tin- 
eel glitterand stately hauteur is but a creature, form- 
ed as thou art — and perhaps not so well formed as thou 
art — came into the world a puling infant as thou 



No. C. 

FROM DR. BLACKLOCR. 

Edinburgh, 1st September, 1790. 
How does my dear friend, must I languish to hear, 
His fortune, relations, and all that are dear I 
With love of the Muses so strongly still smitten, 
I meant this epistle in verse to have written. 
But from age and infirmity indolence flows, 
And this, much 1 fear will restore me to prose. 
Anon to my business I wish to proceed, 
Dr. Anderson guides and provokes me to speed, 
A man of integrity, genius, and worth, 
Who soon a performance intends to set forth, 
A work miscellaneous, extensive, and free, 
Which will weekly appear by the name of the Bee, 
Of this from himself I enclose you a plan, 
And hope you will give what assistance you can, 
Entangled with business, and haunted with care, 
In which more or less human nature must share, 
Some moments of leisure the Muses will claim, 
A sacrifice due to amusement and fame. 
The Bee, which sucks honey from every gay bloom, 
With some rays of your genius her worK may il- 
lume,. 
While the^ flower whence her honey spontaneously 

flows, i 
As fragrantly smells, and as vig'rously grows. 

Now with kind gratulations 'tis time to conclude, 
And add, your promotion is here understood ; 
Thus free from the servile employ of excise, Sir, 
We hope soon to hear you commence Supervisor ; 
You then more at leisure, and free from control, 
May indulge the strong passion that reigns in your 

soul ; 
But I, feeble I, mu6t to nature give way, 
Devoted cold death's, and longevity's prey ; 
From verses though languid my thoughts must un- 
bend, 
Though still 1 remain your affectionate friend, 

THO. BLACKLOCK. 



No. CI. 

EXTRACT OF A LETTER 

FROM MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

Edinburgh, 14:A October, 1790. 
I lately received a letter from our friend B*********, 
what a charming fellow lost to society— born to great 
pectations— wiihguperior abilities, a pure heart, and 
itainted morals, his late in life has been hard indeed 
— still I am persuaded he is happy: not like the gal- 

* The preceding letter explains the feelings under 
which this was written. The strain of indignant in- 
vective goes on some time longer in the style which our 
Bard was too apt to indulge, and of which the reader 
has already seen so much. E. 



102 



LETTERS. 



lant, trie gay Lothario, but in the simplicity ,of rural 
enjoyment, unmixed with regret at the remembrance 
of " the days of other years."* 

I saw Mr. Dunbar, put under the cover of your 
newspaper Mr. Wood's poem on Thomson. This poem 
has suggested an idea to me which you alone are capa- 
ble to execute — a song adapted to each season of the 
year. The task is difficult, but the theme is charm- 
ing : should you succeed, 1 will undertake to get new 
music worthy of the subject. What a fine field for your 
imagination ! and who is there alive can draw so 
many beauties from Nature and pastoral imagery 
oj yourself? It is, by the way, surprising, that there 
does not exist, so far as I know a proper song for each 
season. We have songs on hunting, fishing, skating, 
and one autumnal song, Harcst Home. As your 
Muse is neither spavined nor rusty, you may mount 
the hill of Parnassus, and return with a sonnet in your 
pocket for every season. For my suggestions, if I be 
rude, correct me ; if impertinent,' chastise me ; if pre- 
suming, despise me. I3ul if you blend all my weak- 
nesses, and pound out oue grain of insincerity, then I 
am not thy 

Faithful Friend. &c. 



No. CII. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

November, 1890. 
" As Cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news 
from a far country." 

Fate has long owed me a letter of good news from 
you, in return for the many tidings of sorrow which I 
have received. In this instance 1 most cordially obey 
the apostle— " Rejoice with them that do rejoice,"— 
for me to sing for joy, is no new thing ; but to preach 
for joy, as I have done in the commencement of this 
epistle, is a pitch of extravagant rapture to which 1 
never rose before. 

I read your letter — I literally jumped for joy — How 
could such a mercurial creature «3 a poet lumpishly 
Veep his seat on the receipt of the best news from his 
best friend ? 1 seized my gilt-headed VVangee rod, an 
instrument indispensably necessary in my left hand, in 
the moment of inspiration and rapture; and stride, 
stride — quick and quicker— out skipped I among the 
broomy banks of Nith, to muse over my joy by retail. 
To keep within the bounds of prose was impossible. 
Mrs. Little's is a more elegant, but not a more sin- 
cere compliment, to the sweet Utile fellow, than I, 
extempore, almost, poured out to him in the following 
verses. See Poems, p. 75—0/1 the Birth of a Pos- 
thumous Child. 



I am much flattered by your approbation of my Tarn 
o'Shanter, which you express in your former letter ; 
though, by the by, you load me in that said lelter with 
accusations heavy and many : to all which I plead not 
guilty! Your book is, I hear, on the road to reach 
me. As to printing of poetry, when you prepare it tor 
the pies3, you have only tos'pell it right, and place the 
capital letters properly : as to the punctuation, the 
printers do that themselves. 

I have a copy of Tam o'Shanter ready to send 
you by the first opportunity : it is too heavy to send 
by post. 

I heard of Mr. Corbet lately. He, in consequence of 
your recommendation, is most zealous to serve me. — 
Please favour me soon with an account of your good 
folks; if Mrs. II. is recovering, and the young gentle- 
man doing well. 

* The person here alluded to is Mr. S. who en- 
gaged tho Editor in this undertaking. See the Dedi- 
cation. E 



No. cm. 

TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

Ellisland. 23d January, 1791. 
Many happy returns of the season to you, my dear 
friend ! As many of the good things of this life as ii 
consistent with the usual mixture of good and evil in 
the cup of being! 

I have just finished a poem, which you will re- 
ceive enclosed. It is my first essay in the way or 
tales. 

I have for these several months been hammering at 
an elegy on the amiable and accomplished Miss Bur- 
net. 1 have got, and can get no further than the fol- 
lowing fragment, on which please give me your stric- 
tures. In all kinds of poetic composition I set great 
store by your opinion : but in sentimental verses, in the 
poetry ol the heart, no Roman Catholic ever set more 
value on the infallibility of the Holy Father than I do 
on yours. 

I mean the introductory couplets as text verses.* 



Let me hear from you soon. Adieu! 



No. CIV. 

TO MR. PETER HILL. 

17M. January, 1791. 
Take these two guineas, and place them over against 
that****** account of yours! which has gagged my 
mouth these five or six mouths ! I can as little write 
good things as apologies to a man I owe money to. O 
the supreme curse of making three guineas do ihe busi- 
ness of five 1 Not all the labours of Hercules ; not 
all the Hebrews' three centuries of Egyptian bondage 
were such an insuperable business such an ***** "** 
task! loverly! thou hull' sister ofdeath, thou cousin- 
german of hell ! where shall I find force of execration 
equal to the amplitude of thy demerits? Oppressed 
hy thee, the venerable ancient, grown hoary in the 
practice of every virtue, laden with years and wretch- 
edness implores a little — little aid to support his ex- 
istence from a stony hearted son of Mammon, whose 
sun of prosperity never knew a cloud ; and is by him 
denied and insulted. Oppressed by thee, the man of 
sentiment, whose heart glows with independence, and 
melts with sensibility, inly pines under the neglect, or 
writhes in bitterness of soul under the contumely of 
arrogant, unfeeling wealth. Oppressed by thee, the 
son of genius, whose ill starred ambition plants him at 
the tables of the fashionable and polite, must see in 
suffering silence his remark neglected, and his person 
despised, while shallow greatness, in his idiot attempts 
at wit, shall meet with countenance and applause. 
Nor is it only the family of worth that have reason to 
complain of thee, the children of folly and vice, though 
in common with thee the offspring of evil, smart equal- 
ly under thy rod. Owing to thee, the man of unfortun- 
ate disposition and neglected education, is condemned 
as a fool for his dissipation, despised and shunned as a 
needy wretch, when his follies, as usual, bring him to 
want ; and when his unprincipled necessities drive him 
to dishonest practices, he is abhorred as a miscreant, 
and peris. les by the justice of his country. But far 
otherwise is the lot of the man of family and fortune. 
His early follies and extravagance are spirit and fire j 
his consequent wants are the embarrassments of an 
honest fellow; and when, to remedy the matter, he 
has gained a legal commission to plunder distant prov- 
inces, or massacre peaceful nations, he returns, per- 
haps, laden with the spoils of rapine and murder; 
lives wicked and respected, and dies a •••••* and a 

* Immediately after this were copied the first, fix 
stanzas of the Elegy given in p. 82, of the Poems. 



LETTERS. 



103 



lord. Nay, worse of all, alas, for helpless woman ! 
the needy prostitu'.e, who has shivered at the corner of 
the street waiting to earn the wages of casual prostitu- 
tion, it left neglected and insulted, ridden down by 
the charriot-wheeh of the coroneted Rip, hurrying 
on to the guilty assignation ; 6he who without the 
tame necessities to plead, riots nightly in the same 
guilty trade. 

Wei! ! Divines may say of it what they please, but 
execration is to the mind what phlebotomy is to the 
body ; the vital sluices of both are wonderfully reliev- 
ed by their respective evacuations. 



cv. 

FROM A. F. TYTLER, ESQ.. 

Edinburgh, IZth March, 1791. 
DEAR SIR, 

Mr. Hill yesterday put into my hands a sheet of 
Grose's Antiquities, containing a poem of yours en- 
titled Tarn o'Shanter, a tale. The very high pleasure 
1 have received from the perusal of this admirable 
piece, I feel, demands the warmest acknowledgments. 
Hill tells me he is to send ofT a packet for you this day : 
1 cannot resist, therefore, putting on paper what I must 
have told you in person, had I met with you after the 
recent perusal of your tale, which i3, that I feel 1 owe 
you a debt, which, if undischarged, would reproach 
me with ingratitude. I have seldom in my life tasted 
of higher enjoyment from any work of genius, than I 
have received from this composition : and I am much 
mistaken, if this poem alone, had you never written 
another syllable, would not have been sufficient to 
have transmitted your name down to posterity with 
high reputation. In the introductory part, where you 
paint the character of your hero, and exhibit him a*, 
the ale-house ingle, with his tippling cronies, you have 
delineated nature with a humour and naivete that 
would dc honour to Matthew Prior ; but when you 
describe the infernal orgies of the witches' sabbath, 
and the hellish scenery in which they are exhibited, 
you display a power of imagination that Sliakspeare 
himself could not have exceeded. I know not that I 
have ever met with a picture of more horrible fancy 
than the following : 

" Coffins stood round like open presses, 
That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses ; 
And by some devilish cantrip slight, 
Each in his cauld hand held a light." 

But when I came to the succeeding lines, my blood 
ran cold within me : 

" A knife, a father's throat had mangled, 

Whom his ain son of life bereft ; 

The gray hairs yet slack to the heft. 1 ' 

And here, after the two following lines, " Wi' mair 
o' horrible and awfu'," &c. the descriptive part might 
perhaps have been better closed, than the four lines 
which succeed, which, though good in themselves, yet 
as they derive all their merit from the satire they con- 
tain, are here rather misplaced among the circum- 
stances of pure horror.* The initiation of the young 
witch, is most happily described — the effect of her 
charms exhibited in the dance on Satan himself — the 
apostrophe, " Ah ! little thought thy reverend grau- 
nie!" — the transport of Tarn, who forgets his situa- 
tion, and enters completely into the spirit of the scene, 
are all features of high merit in this excellent composi- 
tion. The only fault that it possesses, is, that the 
winding up, or conclusion of the story, is not commen- 
surate to the interest which is excited by the descrip- 
tive and characteristic painting of the preceding parts. 
The preparation is fine, but the result is not adequate. 

* Our Bard profited by Mr. Tytler's criticisms, and 
expunged the foui lines accordingly 



But for this, perhaps, you ha 'e a good apology— you 
slick to the popular tale. 

And now that I have got out my mind, and feel a lit- 
tle relieved of the weight of that debt I owed you, let 
me end this desultory scroll, by an advice : you have 
proved your talent for a species of composition in which 
but a very few of our own poets have succeeded—Go 
on — write more tales in the same style--you will eclipse 
Prior and La Fontaine ; for with equal wit, equal 
power of numbers, and equal naivete of expression, 
you have a bolder, and more vigorous imagination. 
I am, dear Sir, with much esteem 
Yours, 8lc. 



No. CVI. 

TO A. F. TYTLER, ESQ. 

SIR, , 

Nothing lesx than the unfortunate accident I have 
met with could have prevented my grateful acknowl- 
edgments for your letter. His own favourite poem, 
and that an essay in a walk of the muses entirely new 
to him, where consequently his hopes and fears were 
on the most anxious alarm for his success in the at- 
tempt; to have that poem so much applauded by one 
of the first judges, was the most delicious vibration 
that ever trilled along the heartstrings of a poor poet. 
However, Providence, to keep up the proper proportion 
of evil with the good, which it seems is necessary in 
this sublunary state, thought proper to check my exul- 
tation by a very serious misfortune. A day or two af- 
ter I received your letter, my horse came down with 
me and broke my right arm. As this is the first service 
my arm has done me since its disaster, 1 find myself 
unable to do more than just in general terms to thank 
you for this additional instance of your patronage and 
friendship. As to the faults you detected in the piece, 
they are truly there : one of them, the hit at the lawyer 
and priest, I shall cut out : as to the falling off in "the 
catastrophe, for the reason you justly adduce, it can- 
not easily be remedied. Your approbation, Sir, has 
given me such additional spirits to persevere in this 
species of poetic composition that 1 am already revolving 
two or three stories in my fancy. If I can bring these 
floating ideas to bear any kind of embodied form, it 
will give me an additional opportunity of ssuring 
you how much I have the honour to be, &c. 



No. CVII. 



TOMRS.DUNLOP. ' 

Ellisiand, 1th February, 1791. 
When I tell you, Madam, that by a fall, not from 
my horse, but with my horse, I have been a cripple 
6o'me time, and that this is the first day my arm and 
hand have been able to serve me in writing, you will 
allow that it is too good an apology for my seemingly 
ungrateful silence. lam now getting better, and am 
able to rhyme a little, which implies some tolerable 
ease ; as f cannot think that the most poetic genius is 
able to compose on the rack. 

I do not remember if ever I mentioned to you my 
having an idea of composing an elegy on the late Miss 
Burnet of Monboddo. 1 had the honour of being pret- 
ty well acquainted with her, and have seldom felt so 
much at the loss of an acquaintance, as when I heard 
that so amiable and accomplished a piece of God's 
works was no more. I have as yet gone no farther 
than the following fragment, of which please let me 
have your opinion. You know that elegy is a subject 
so much exhausted, that any new idea on the business 
is not to be expected ; 'tis well if we can place an old 
idea in a new li»ht. How far 1 have succeeded as to 
this last, you will judge fi om what follows : — 



104 



LETTERS. 



(Here followed the Elegy, as given in the Poems, p. 
82, with this additional verse :) 

The parent's heart that nestled fond in thee, 
That heart huw sunk, a prey to grief and care : 

So deck'd the woodbine sweet yon aged tree, 
So from it ravish'd, leaves it bleak and bare. 



I have proceeded no further. 

Your kind letter, with your kind remembrance of 
your godson, came safe. This last, Madam, is scarce- 
ly what my pride can bear. A3 to the little fellow, he 
is, partiality apart, the finest boy I have of a long time 
seen. He is now seventeen months old, has the small- 
pox and measles over, has cut several teeth, and yet 
never had a grain of doctor's drugs in his bowels. 

I am truly happy to hear that the " little floweret" 
is blooming so fre^h and fair, and that the " mother 
plant" is rather recovering her drooping head. Soon 
and well may her " cruel wounds" be healed ! I 
have written thus far with a good deal of difficulty. 
When 1 get a little abler, you shall hear farther from, 
Madam, yours, &c. 



No. CVIII. 



to Lady w. m. constable, 

Acknowledging a present of a valuable Snuffbox, 
with afine picture of Mary, Queen of Scots, on(/t» 
Lid. 

MY LADY, 

hing less than the unlucky accident of having 
ate- Token my right arm, could have prevented me, 
the moment 1 received your Ladyship's elegant pres- 
ent by Mrs. Miller, from returning you my warmest 
and most grateful acknowledgments. I assure your 
Ladyship I shall set it apart ; the symbols of religion 
shall only be more sacred. In the moment of poetic 
composition, the box shall be my inspiring genius. 
When I would breathe the comprehensive wish of be- 
nevolence for the happiness of others, 1 shall recollect 
your Ladyship : when I would interest my fancy in 
the distresses incident to humanity, 1 shall remember 
the unfortunate Mary. 



No. CIX. 

TO MRS. GRAHAM, 
OFFINTRY. 

MADAM, 

Whether it is that the story of our Mary, Queen of 
Scots, has a peculiar effect on the feelings of a poet, or 
whether 1 have in the enclosed ballad succeeded be- 
yond my usual poetic success, 1 know not ; but it has 
pleased me beyond any effort of my muse for a gqod 
while past ; on that account I enclose it particularly to 
you. It is true, the purity of my motives may be sus- 
pected. 1 am already deeply indebted to Mr G 's 

goodness ; and what, in the usual ways of men, is of 
infinitely greater importance, Mr. G. can do me ser- 
vice of the utmost importance in time to come. 1 was 
born a poor dog ; and however 1 may occasionally 
pick a better bone than I used to do, I know 1 must 
live and die poor; but I will indulge the flattering 
faith that my poetry will considerably outlive my pov- 
erty ; and, without any fustian affectation of spirit, I 
can promise and affirm, that it must be no ordinary 
craving of the latter shall ever make me do any thing 
injurious to the honest fame of the former. Whatever 
may be my failings, for failings are a part of human 



nature, may they ever be tnose of a generous heart 
and an independent mind ! It is no fault of mine that 

I was born to dependence ; nor is it Mr. G '• 

chiefest praise that he can command influence ; but it 
is his merit to bestow, not only with the kindness of a 
brother, but with the politeness of a gentleman ; and * 
trust it shall be mine to receive with thankfulness, ana 
remember with undiminished gratitude. 



No. CX. 

FROM THE REV. G. BAIRD. 



London, 8th February, 1791. 



SIR, 



1 trouble you with this letter to inform you that I 
am in hopes of being able very soon to bring to the 
press, a new edition (long since talked of) of Michael 
Bruce' s Poems. The profits of the edition are to 
go to his mother — a woman of eighty years of age — 
poor and helpless. The poems are to be published by 
subscription ; and it may be possible, 1 think, to 
make out a 2s. 6d. or 3s. volume, with the assistance 
of a few hitherto unpublished verses, which I have got 
from the mother of the poet. 

But the design I have in view in writing to you, is 
not merely to inform you of these facts, it is to solicit 
the aid of your name and pen, in support of the 
scheme. The reputation of Bruce is already high 
with every reader of classical taste, and I shall be 
anxious toguaid against tarnishing his character, hy 
allowing any new poems to appear thai may lower it. 
For this purpose the-MSS. I am in possession of, have 
been submitted to the revision of some whose critical 
talents 1 can trust to, and I mean still to submit them 
to others. 

May I beg to know, therefore, if you will take the 
trouble of perusing the MSS.— of giving your opinion, 
and suggesting what curtailments, alterations, or 
amendments, occur to you as advisable ? And will 
you allow us to let it be known, that a few lines by 
you will be added to the volume? 

I know the extent of this request. It is bold to make 
it. But I have this consolation, that though you see 
proper to refuse it, you will not blame me for having 
made it ; you will see my apology in the motive. 

May I just add, that Michael Bruce is one in whose 
company, from his past appearance, you would not, I 
am convinced, blush to be found ; and as I would sub- 
mit every line of his that should now be published, to 
your own criticisms, you would be assured that nothing 
derogatory, either to him or you, would be admitted in 
.hat appearance he may make in future. 

You have already paid an honourable tribute to 
kindred genius, in Fergusson ; I fondly hope that tha 
mother of Bruce will experience your patronage 

T wish to have the subscription-papers circulated bv 
the 14th of .March, Biuce's birthday, which 1 under- 
stand some friends in Scotland talk this year of obser- 
ving — at that time it will ne resolved, I imagine, to 
place a plain humble stone, over Ins grave. This at 
least I ti ost you will asree to do— to furnish, in a few 
couplets, an inscription for it. 

On these poinls may I solicit an answer as early as 
possible i a short delay might disappoint us in piocu 



ngtliat 
.vhole. 



You will be pleased to address for me uuder cover to 
the Duke of Athole, Loudon. 



P. S. Have you ever seen an engraving published 
here some time ago, from one of your poems " Otfia* 



LETTERS. 



105 



palt Orb;" If you have not, I shall have the pleasure 
of sending it to you. 



No. CXI. 

TO THE REV. G. BAlRD. 

In answer to the foregoing. 

Why did you, my dear Sir, write to me in such a 
hesitating style, on the business of poor Bruce ? Don't 
I know, and have I not fell the many ills, the peculiar 
ills, that poetic flesh is heir to? You shall have your 
choice of all the unpublished poems 1 have; and had 
your letter had my direction so as to have reached me 
sooner (it only caine to my hand this moment) I should 
have directly put you out of suspense on the subject. 
I only ask that some prefatory advertisement in the 
book, as well as the subscription-bills may bear, that 
the publication is solely for the benefit of Bruce's 
mother. 1 would not put it in the power of ignorance 
to surmise, or malice to insinuate, that I clubbed a 
•hare in the work for mercenary motives. Nor need 
you give me credit for any remarkable generosity in 
my part of the business. I have such a host of pecca- 
dilloes, failings, follies, and backslidings (any body but 
myself might perhaps give some of them a worse appel- 
lation,) that by way of some balance, however trifling, 
in the account, I am fain to do any good that occurs in 
my very limited power to a fellow-creature, just for 
the selfish purpose of clearing a little the vista of retro- 
spection. 



No. CXII 

TO DR. MOORE 

Ellisland, 27th February, 1791. 
I do not know, Sir, whether you are a subscriber to 
Grose's Antiquities of Scotland. If you are, the en- 
closed poem will not be altogether new to you, Cap- 
tain Grose did me the favour to send me a dozen copies 
of the proof sheet, of which this is one. Should you 
have read the piece before, still this will answer the 
principal end I have in view ! it will give me another 
opportunity of thanking you for all your goodness to 
the rustic bard; and also of showing you, that the 
abilities you have been pleased to commend and patron- 
ize, and are still employed in the way you wish. 

The Elegy on Captain Henderson is a tribute to the 
memory of a man I loved much. Poets have in this 
the same advantage as Roman Catholics ; they can be 
of service to their friends after they have past that 
bourne where all other kindness ceases to be of any 
avail. Whether, after all, either the one or the other 
be of any real service to the dead, is, I fear, very 
problematical ; but I am sure they are highly gratify- 
ing to the living : and, as a very orthodox text, 1 forget 
wherein Scripture, says, " whatsoever is not of faith 
issin ;" so say I, whatsoever is not detrimental to so- 
ciety, and is of positive enjoyment, is of God, the giver 
of all good things, and ought to be received and enjoy- 
ed by his creatures with thankful delight. As almost all 
my religious tenets originate from my heart. 1 am 
wonderfully pleased with the idea, that I can still 
keep up a tender intercourse with the dearly beloved 
friend, or still more dearly beloved mistress, who is 
gone to the world of spirits. 

The ballad or Q,ueen Mary was begun while I was 
busy with Perq/'s Reliques of English Poetry. By 
the way, how much is every honest heart, which has a 
tincture of Caledonian prejudice, obliged to you for 
your glorious story of Buchanan and Targe ! 'T was 
%n unequivocal proof of your loyal gallantry of soul 



giving Targe the victory. I should have been mortified 
to the ground if you had not. 



I have just read over, once more of many times, your 
Zeluco. 1 marked with my pencil, as I went along, 
every passage that pleased me particularly above the 
rest ; and one, or two 1 think, which with humble de- 
ference, I am disposed to think unequal to the merits 
of the book. I have sometimes thought to transcribe 
these marked passages, or at least so much of them as 
to point where they are, and send them to you. Origi- 
nal strokes that strongly depict the human heart, is 
your and Fielding's province, beyond any other novel- 
ist I have ever perused. Richardson indeed might per- 
haps be excepted ; but unhappily, his dramatis per- 
sona are beings of some other world ; and however 
they may captivate the inexperienced romatic fancy of 
a boy or girl, they will ever, in proportion as we have 
made human nature our study, dissatisfy our riper 
minds. 



As to my private concerns, I am going on, a mighty 
tax-gatherer before the Lord, and have lately had the 
interest to get myself ranked on the list of Excise as a 
supervisor. I am not yet employed as such, but in a 
few years I shall fall into the file of supervisorship b7 
seniority. I have an immense loss in the death of the 
Earl of Glencairn, the patron from whom all my fame 
and good fortune took its rise. Independent of my 
grateful attachment to him which was indeed so strong 
that it pervaded my very soul, and was entwined with 
the thread of my existence ; so soon as the prince's 
friends had got in, (and every dog, you know, has his 
day,)my getting forward in the Excise would have been 
an easier business than otherwise it will be. Though 
this was a consummation devoutly to be wished, yet, 
thank Heaven, I can live and rhyme as I am ; and as to 
my boys, poor little fellows ! if'l cannot place them on 
as high an elevation in life as I could wish, I shall, if I 
am favoured so much of the Disposer of events as to 
see that period, fix them on as broad and independent 
a basis as possible. Among the many wise adages 
which have been treasured up by our Scottish ances- 
tors, this is one of the best, Better be the head o' the 
commonalty as the tail o' the gentry. 

But I am got on a subject, which, however interest- 
ing to me, is of no manner of consequence to you . so I 
shall give you a short poem on the other page, and close 
this with assuring you how sincerely I have the honour 
to be yours, &c. 



Written on the blank leaf of a book which I present- 
ed to a very young lady whom 1 had formerly charac- 
terized under the denomination of The Rosebud. See 
Poems, p. 67. 



No. CXIII. 

FROM DR. MOORE. 

London, 28th March, 1791. 
DEAR SIR, 

Your letter of the 18th of February I received only 
two days ago, and this day I had the pleasure of wait- 
ing on the Rev. Mr, Baird, at the Duke of Athole's, 
who had been so obliging as to transmit it to me, 
with the printed verses on Alloa Church, the Elegy 
on Captain Henderson, and the Epitaph. There 
are many poetical beauties in the former ; what I 
particularly admire, are the three striking similiei 
from — 

" Orlike the snow-falls in the river." 

and the eight lines which begin with 

By this time he was cross the fonj." 



M2 



106 



LETTERS. 



*o exquisitely expressive of the superstitious impres- 
sions of the country. And the twenty-two lines from 

" Coffins stood round like open presses." 

which, in my opinion, are equal to the ingredients of 
Shakspeare's cauldron in Macbeth. 

As for the Elegy, the chief merit of it consists in the 
very graphical description of the objects belonging to 
the country in which the poet writes, and which none 
but a Scottish poet could have described, and none but 
a real poet, and a close observer of Nature could have 
so described. 



There is something original, and to me wonderfully 
pleasing in the Epitaph. 

1 remember you once hinted before, what you repeat 
in your last, that you had made some remarks on 
Zeluco on the margin. 1 should be very glad to see 
them, and regret you did not send them before the last 
edition, which is just published. Iray transcribe them 
forme: I sincerely value your opinion very highly, 
and pray do not suppress one of these in which you 
censure the sentiment or expression. Trust me it will 
break no squares between us— I am not akin to the 
bishop of Grenada. 

I must now mention what has been on my mind for 
some time : I cannot help thinking you imprudent, in 
scattering abroad so many copies of your verses. It 
is most natural to give a few to confidential friends, 
particularly to those who are connected with the sub- 
ject, or who are perhaps themselves the subject; but 
this ought to be done under promise not to give other 
copies. Of the poem you sent me ou Glueen Mary, I 
refused every solicitation for copies, but I lately saw it 
in a newspaper. My motive of cautioning you on this 
subject, is, that I wish to engage you to collect all 
your fugitive pieces, not already printed; and, after 
they have been re-considered, and polished to the ut- 
most of your power, 1 would have you publish them by 
another subscription : in promoting of which I will ex- 
ertmyself with pleasure. 

In your future compositions I wish you would use 
the modern English. You have shown your powers 
in Scottish sufficiently. Although in certain subjects 
it gives additional zest to the humour, yet it is lost to 
the English ; and why should you write only for a part 
of the island, when you can command the admiration 
of the whole 1 

If you chance to write to my friend Mrs. Dunlop of 
Dunlop, I beg to be affectionately remembered to her. 
She must not judge of the warmth of my sentiments 
respecting her by the number of my letters ; 1 hardly 
ever write a line but on business ; and 1 do not 
know that I should have scribbled all this to you, 
but for the business part, that is, to instigate you to 
a new publication ; and to tell you, that when you 
have a sufficient number to make a volume, you should 
set your friends on getting subscriptions. 1 wish 1 
could have a few hours' conversation with you — I have 
many things to say which I cannot write. If ever I go 
to Scotland, I will let you know, that you may meet 
me at your own house, or my friend Mrs. Hamilton, 
or both, 

Adieu, my dear, Sir, &c. 



No. CXIV. 

TO THE REY. ARCH. ALISON. 

Ellisland. near Dumfries, Uth Feb. 1791. 
SIR, 

You must, by this time, have set me down as one of 
the most ungrateful of men. You did me the honour 
to present me with a book which does honour to sci- 
tnce and the intellectual powers of man, and I have 



not even so much as acknowledged the receipt of it.— 
The fact is, you yourself are to blame for it. Flatter- 
ed as 1 was by your telling me that you wished to have 
my opinion of the work, the old spiritual enemy of man- 
kind, who knows well that vanity is one of the sins 
that most easily beset me, put it into my head to pon- 
der over the performance with the look out of a critic, 
and to draw up, forsooth, a deep-learned digest of stric- 
tures, on a composition, of which, in fact, until I read 
the book, 1 did not even know the *irst principles. 1 
own, Sir, that, at first glance, several of your preposi- 
tions startled me as paradoxical. That the martial 
clangor of a trumpet had something in it vastly more 
grand, heroic, and sublime, thau the twingle-twangle 
of a Jew's-harp; that the delicate flexure of a rose 
twig, when the half-blown flower is heavy with the 
tears of the dawn, was infinitely more beautiful and 
elegant than the upright stub of a burdock : and that 
from something innate and independent of all associa- 
tion of ideas ; — ihese I had set down as irrefragable, 
orthodox truths, until perusing your book shook my 
faith. In short, Sir, except Euclid's Elements of 
Geometry, which I made a shift to unravel by my 
father's fireside, in the winter evenings of the first sea- 
son 1 held the plough, 1 never read a book which gave 
me such a quantum of information, and added so much 
to my stock of ideas, as your " Essays on the princi- 
ples of Taste." One thing, Sir, you must forgive my 
mentioning as an uncommon merit in the work, I 
mean the ianguage. To clothe abstract philosophy in 
elegance of style, sounds something like a contradiction 
in terms ; but you have convinced me that they are 
quite compatible. 

I enclose you some poetic bagatelles nf my late com- 
position. The one in print is my first essay in the way 
of telling a tale. 

I am, Sir, &c. 



No. CXV. 

Extract of a Letter 

TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

VZth March, 1791. 
If the foregoing piece be worth your strictures, let 
me have them. For my own part, a thing that I have 
just composed always appears through a double por- 
tion of that partial medium in which an author will 
ever view his own works. I believe, in general, novel- 
ty has something in it that inebriates the fancy, and 
not (infrequently dissipates and fumes away like other 
intoxication, and leaves the poor patient, as usual, 
with an aching heart. A striking instance of this might 
be adduced in the revolution of many a hymeneal hon- 
ey-moon. But lest J sink into stupid prose, and so 
sacrilegiously intrude on the office of my parish priest, 
I shall fill up the page in my own way, and give 
you ancther song of my late composition, which will 
appear, perhaps, in Johnson's work, as well as the 
former. 

You must know a beautiful Jacobite air, There'll 
never be peace till Jamie comes hame. When politi- 
cal conibustion ceases to be the object of princes and 
patriots, it then, you know becomes the lawful prey of 
historians and poets.* 



If you like the air, and if the stanzas hit your fancy, 
you cannot imagine, my dear friend, how much you 
would oblige me, if, by the charms of your delightful 
voice, you would give my honest effusion to '• the me- 
mory of joys that are past !" to the few friends whom 
you indulge in that pleasure. But I have scribbled on 
'till 1 hear the clock has intimated the near approach 
of 

* Here followed a copy of the Song printed in p. 82, 
of the Poems. " By yon castle wa'," &c. 



LETTERS. 



107 



•* That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane." 
80, good night to you ! sound be your sleep, and delect- 
table your dreams ! A-propos, how do you like this 
thought iu a ballad 1 have just now on the tapis ? 

I look to the west when I gae to rest, 
That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be ; 

For far in the west is he I lo'e best, 
The lad that is dear to my babie and me ! 



Good nignt, once more, and God bless you ! 



No. CXVI. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

EUUland, \\th April, 1791. 
I am once more able, my honoured friend, to return 
/on, with my own hand, thanks for the many instan- 
ces of your friendship, and particularly for your kind 
anxiety in this last disaster that my evil genius had in 
store for me. However, life is chequered — joy and sor- 
row — for on Saturday Inst, Mrs. Burns made me a 
present of a fine boy, rather stouter, but not so hand- 
some as your godson was at his time of life. Indeed I 
look on your little namesake to be my chef d' ceuvre in 
that species of manufacture, as 1 look on Tamo' Shan- 
ter to be my standard performance in the poetical line. 
'Tis true both the one and the other discover a spice of 
roguish waggery that might, perhaps, he as well spar- 
ed : but then they also show, in my opinion, a force of 
genius, and a finishing polish, that 1 despair of ever 
excelling. Mrs. Burns is getting stout again, arid laid 
as lustily about her to-day at breakfast, as a teaper 
from the corn ridge. That is the peculiar privilege and 
olessing of our hitle sprightly damsels, that are bred 
among the hay and heather. We cannot hope for that 
highly polished mind, that charming delicacy of soul, 
which is found among the female world in the more 
elevated stations of life, and which is certainly by far 
the most bewitching charm in the famous cestus of Ve- 
nus, ll is. indeed, such an inestimable treasure, that 
where it can be had iu its natine heavenly purity, un- 
stained by some one or other of the many shades of af- 
fectation, and unalloyed by some one or other of the 
many species of caprice, I declare to Heaven, I should 
think it cheaply purchased at the expense of every oth- 
er earthly good ! But as this angelic creature is, I am 
afraid, extremely rare in any station and rank of life, 
and totally denied to such an humble one as mine : we 
meaner mortals must put up with the next rank of fe- 
male excellence — as fine a figure and face we can pro- 
duce as any rank of life whatever ; rustic, native grace ; 
unaffected" modesty, and unsullied purity ; nature's 
mother wit, and the rudiments of taste; a simplicity 
of soul, unsuspicious of, because unacquainted with 
the crooked ways of a selfish, interested, disengenuous 
world; and the dearest charm of all the rest, a yield- 
ing sweetness of disposition, and a generous warmth 
ol neart, grateful for love on our part, and ardently 
glowing with a more than equal return ; these, with a 
healthy frame, a sound, vigorous constitution, which 
your higher ranks csn scarcely ever hope to enjoy, are 
the charms of lovely woman in my humble walk of 
life. 

This is the greatest effort my broken arm has yet 
made. Do let me hear, by first post, how cher petit 
Monsieur comes on with his small-pox. Mrj Al- 
mighty goodness preserve and restore him ! 



No. CXVII. 

UfcAK SIR. 

1 am exceedingly to blame in not writing yon long 
ago; but the truth is, that I am the most indolent of 
ail human beings : and when 1 matriculate in the her 



aid's office, I intend that my supporters shall be two 
sloths, my crest a slow-worm, and the motto, "Dei! 
tak the foremost !" So much by way of apology for 
not thanking you sooner for your kind execution of my 
commission. 

I would have sent you the poem : but somehow or 
other it found its way into the public papers, where 
you must have seen it. 



I am ever, dear Sir, yours sincerely, 
ROBERT BURNS. 



No. CXVIII. 

TO MR. CUNNINGHAM 

IliA June, 1791. 

Let me interest you, my dear Cunningham, in be- 
half of the gentleman who wails on you with this. He 
is a Mr. Clarke of Moffat, principal school-master 
there, and is at present suffering severely urder toe 
***** of one or two powerful individuals 
of his employers. He is accused of harshness 10 * * » * 
that were placed under his care. God help the teach- 
er, il a man of sensibility and genius, and such as my 
friend Clarke, when a booby father presents him with 
his booby son, and insists on lighting up the rays of 
science in a fellow's head whose skull is impervious 
and inaccessible by any other way than a positive 
fracture with a cudgel : a fellow whom, in fact, it sa- 
vours of impiety to attempt making a scholar of, as 
he has been marked a blockhead in the book of fate, 
at the Almighty fiat of his Creator. 

The patrons of Moffat school are the ministers, ma- 
gistrates, and town-council of Edinburgh ; and as the 
business comes now before them, let niebeg my dearest 
friend to do every thing in his power to serve the inter- 
ests of a man of genius and worth, and a man whom I 
particularly respect and esteem. You know some 
good fellows among the magistracy and council, 

but particularly you have much to say with a reverend 
gentleman, to whom you have the honour of being very 
nearly related, and whom this country and age have 
had the honour to produce. I need" not name the his- 
torian of Charles V.* 1 tell him, through the medium 
of his nephew's influence, that Mr. Clarke is.a gentle- 
man who will not disgrace even his patronage. I 
know the merits of the cause thoroughly, and say it, 
that my friend i? falling a sacrifice to prejudiced igno- 
rance, and «*««*". God help the children of de- 
pendence ! Hated and persecuted by their enemies, 
and too often, a'las I almost unexceptionably, received 
by their friends with disrespect and reproach, under 
the thin disguise of cold civility and humiliating ad- 
vice. O ! to he a sturdy savage, stalking in the pride 
of his independence, amid the solitary wilds of his de- 
serts ; rather than in civilized life ; helplessly to 
tremble for a subsistence, precarious as the caprice of 
a fellow-creature ! Eve>-y man has his virtues, and 
no man is without his failings ; anu curse on that pri- 
vileged plain-dealing of friendship, which in the hour 
of my calamity, cannot reach forth the helping hand, 
without at the same time pointing out those failings, 
and apportioning them their share in procuring my 
present distress. My friends, for such the world calls 
ye, and such ye think yourselves to be, pass by my 
virtues if you please, but do, also, spare my follies": 
the first will witness in my breast for themselves, and 
the last will give pain enough to the ingenuous miml 
without you. And since deviating more or less from 
the paths of propriety and rectitude must be incident 
to human nature, do thou, Fortune put it in my pow- 
er, always from myself, and of myself, to bear the 
consequences of those errors I 1 do not want to be n- 

* Dr. Robertson was uncle to Mr. Cunningham K. 



10* 



LETTERS. 



dependent tnat I may sin, but I want to be indepen- 
dent in my sinning 

To return, in this rambling letter, to the subject I 
Bet out with, let me recommend my friend, Mr. Clarke, 
to your acquaintance and good offices ; his worth enti- 
tles him to the one, and his gratitude will merit the 
other. I long much to hear from you— Adieu I 



No. CXIX. 



FROM THE EARL OP BUCHAN. 

Dryburgh Abbey, lllh June, 1791. 
Lord Buchan has the pleasure to invite Mr. Burns 
to make one at the coronation of the bust of Thomson, 
on Edman Hill, on the 22d of September ; for which 
day, perhaps, his muse may inspire an ode suited to 
the occasion. Suppose Mr. Burns should, leaving the 
Nith, go across the country, and meet the Tweed at 
the nearest point from his farm — and, wandering along 
the pastoral banks of Thomson's pure parent stream, 
catch inspiration on the devious walk, till he finds 
Lord Buchan sitting on the ruins of Dryburgh. There 
the commendator will give him a hearty welcome, and 
try to light his lamp at the pure flame of native genius 
upon the altar of Caledonian virtue. This poetical 
perambulation of the Tweed, is a thought of the late 
Sir Gilbert Elliot's and of Lord Minto's, followed out 
by his accomplished grandson, the present Sir Gilbert, 
who having been with Lord Buchan lately, the project 
was renewed, and will, they hope, be executed in the 
manner proposed. 



No. CXX. 

TO THE EARL OF BUCHAN. 

My LORD, 

Language sinks under the ardour of my feelings 
when I would thank your Lordship for the honour 
you have done me in inviting me to make one at the 
coronation of the bust of Thomson. In my first enthu- 
siasm in reading the card you did me the honour to 
write to me, I overlooked every obstacle, and deter- 
mined to go ; but I fear it will not be in my power. A 
week or two's absence, in the very middle of my har- 
vsst, is what 1 much doubt I dare not venture on. 

Your Lordship hints at an ode for the occasion : but 
Who could write after Collins? I read over his verses 
to the memory of Thomson, and despaired. I got, in- 
deed, to the length of three or four stanzas, in the 
\*ay of address to the shade of the bard, on crowning 
his bust. I shall trouble your Lordship with the sub 
jcinedcopy of them, which, I am afraid, will be but 
i:o convincing a proof how unequal I am to the task. 
However, it affords me an opportunity of approaching 
your Lordship, and declaring how sincerely aud grate- 
fully I have the honour to be, &c. 



No. CXXI. 

FROM THE SAME. 



Dryburgh Abbey, 16th September, 1791. 
SIR, 

Your address to the shade of Thomson has been well 
received by the public ; and though I should disap- 
prove of your allowing Pegasus to ride with you off the 
field of your honourable and useful rrofession, yet I 
cannot resist an impulse which 1 feel a\. this moment 
to suggest to your Muse, Harvest Home, as an excel- 
lent subject for hergratelul song, in which the peculiar 
aspect and manners of oor country might furnish an 
excellent portrait and landscape of Scotland, for the 
employment of happy moments of leisure and recess 
from your more important occupations. 



Your Halloween, and Saturday Night, will remain 
to distant posterity as interesting pictures of rural in- 
nocence and happiness in -your native country, and 
were happily written in the dialect of the people ; but 
Harvest Home, being suited to descriptive poetry, ex- 
cept, where colloquial, may escape the disguise of a 
dialect which admits of no elegance or dignity of ex 
pression. Without the assistance of any god or god- 
dess, and without the invocation of any foreign Muse, 
you may convey in epistolary form the description of 
a scene so gladdening and picturesque, with all the 
concomitant local position, landscape and costume ; 
contrasting the peace, improvement, and happiness 
of the borders of the once hostile nations of Britain, 
with their former oppression and misery ; and show- 
ing, in lively and beautiful colours, the beauties and 
joys of a rural life. And as the unvitiated heart 13 
naturally disposed to overflow with gratitude in the 
moment of prosperity, such a subject would furnish 
you with an amiable opportunity of perpetuating the 
names of Glencairn, Miller, and your other eminent 
benefactors ;. which, from what I know of your spirit, 
and have seen of your poems and letters, will not devi- 
ate from the chastity of praise that is so uniformly 
united to true taste and genius. 

lam Sir, &c 



No. CXXII. 

TO LADY E. CUNNINGHA 

MY LADY, 

I would, as usual, have availed myself of the privi- 
lege your goodness has allowed me, of sending you any 
thing 1 compose in my poetical way ; but as I had re- 
solved, so soon as the shock of my irreparable loss 
would allow me, to pay a tribute to my late benefac- 
tor, I determined to make that the first piece I should 
do myself the honour of sendingyou. Had the wing of 
my fancy been equal to the ardour of my heart, the 
enclosed had been much more worthy your perusal : 
as it is, I beg leave to lay it at your Ladyship's feet. 
As all the world knows my obligations to the Earl of 
Glencairn, I would wish to show as openly that my 
heart glows, and shall ever glow with the most grate- 
ful sense and remembrance of his Lordship's goodness. 
The sables I did myself the honour to wear to his 
Lordship's memory, were not the "mockery of wo." 
Nor shall my gratitude perish with me ! If, among 
my children, I "shall have a son that has a heart, he 
shall hand it down to his child as a family honour, and 
a family debt, that my dearest existence I owe to the 
noble house of Glencairn ! 

I was about to say, my Lady, that if you think the 
poem may venture to see the light, I would, in soma 
way or other, give it to the world.* 



No. CXXIII. 

TO MR. AINSLIE. 
MY DEAR AINSLIE, 

Can you minister to a mind diseased ? Can you, 
amid the horrors of penitence, regret, remorse, head- 
ache, nausea, and all the rest of the d d hounds 

of hell, that beset a poor wretch who has been guilty of 
the sin of drunkenness— can you speak peace to a trou- 
bled soul? 

Miserable perdu that I am ! I have tried every 
thing that used to amuse me, but in vain : here must I 
sit a monument of the vengeance laid up in store for :ne 
wicked, slowly counting every check of the clock as ! t 

* The poem enclosed is published. See "The Ii«- 
incut for Jamas Earl of Glencairn." Poems, p. 99. 



LETTERS. 



•lowly — slowly, numbers over these lazy scoundrels of 
hours, who J n them, are ranked up before me, ev- 
ery one at bis neighbour's backside, and every one 
with a burden of anguish on his back, to pour on my 
devoted head — and there is none to pity me. My 
wife scolds me ! my business torments me, and my 
sins come staring me in the face, every one telling a 
more bitter tale than his fellow. — When I tell you 
en * * * has lost its power to please, you will guess 
•mething of my hell within, and all around me. I be- 
<n Elibanks and Elibraes, but the stanzas fell unen- 
yed and unfinished from my listless tongue ; at last 
luckily thought of reading over an old letter of youis 
at lay by me in my bookcase, and I fell something, 
r the first time since I opened my eyes, of pleasurable 
cistence. Well — I begin to breathe a little, since I 
:gan to write you. How are you ? and what are you 
oiDg? How goes Law? A propos, for connexion's 
ike, do not address to me supervisor, for that is an 
onour I cannot pretend to — I am on the list, as we 
all it, for a supervisor, and will be called out by and 
y to act as one : but at present 1 am a simple gauger, 
hough t'other day I got an appointment to an excise 
iivision of '251. per arm. better than the rest. My pre- 
ent income, down money, is 707. per arm. 



have one #r two good fellows here whom you 
Tould be glad to know. 



No. CXXIV. 

FROM SIR JOHN WHITEFOORD. 

Near Maybole, \Qth October, 1791 . 
SIR, 

Accept of my thanks for your favour, with the La- 
ment oil the death of my much-esteemed friend, and 
our worthy patron, the perusal of which pleased and 
.fleeted me much. The lines addressed to me are very 
tattering. 

I have always thought it most natural to suppose 
(and a strong argument in favour of a future exist- 
ence) that when we see an honourable and virtuous 
man labouring under bodily infirmities, and oppressed 
by the frowns if fortune in this world, that there was 
a happier state beyond the grave ; where that worth 
and honour, which were neglected here, would meet 
with their just reward ; and where temporal misfor- 
tunes would receive an eternal recompense. Let us 
cherish this hope for our departed friend, and moder- 
ate our grief for that loss we have sustained, knowing 
that he cannot return to us, but we may go to him. 

Remember me to your wife ; and with every good 
wish for the prosperity of you and your family, believe 
me at all times, 

Your most sincere friend, 

JOHN WHITEFOORD. 



No. CXXV. 

FROM A. F. TYTLER, ESQ.. 

Edinburgh, 27IA November, 1791. 
DEAR SIR, 

You have much reason to blame me for neglecting 
till now to acknowledge the receipt of a most agreeable 
packet, containing Tie Whistle, a ballad t and The 
Lament ; which reached me about six weeks ago in 
London, from whence I am just returned. Your letter 
was forwarded to me there from Edinburgh, where, as 
I observed by the date, it had Iain for some day3. 
This was an additional reason for me to have answered 
't immediately on receiving it ; but the truth was, the 
bustle of business, engagements, and confusion of one 
kind or another, in which 1 found myself immersed all 



the time I was in London, absolutely put it oat of mjr 
power. But to have done with apologies, let me now 
endeavour to prove myself in some degree deserving 
of the very flattering compliment you pay me, by giving 
you at Iea3t a frank and candid, if it should not be a 
judicious, criticism on the poems you sent me. 



The ballad of The Whistle \%, in my opinion truly 
excellent. The old tradition which you have taken up 
is the best adapted for a Bacchanalian composition of 
any 1 ever met with, and you have done it full justice. 
In the first place, the strokes of wit arise naturally 
from the subject, and are uncommonly happy. For 
example, 

" The bands grew the tighter the more they were wet, 
" Cynthia hinted he'd find them next morn." 
" Tho' Fate said — a hero should perish in light ; 
" So up rose bright Phoebus, -and down fell the knight." 

Tn the next place, you are singularly happy in the dis- 
crimination of your heroes, and in giving each the sen- 
timents and language suitable to his character. And, 
lastly, you have much merit in the delicacy of the pane- 
gyric which you have contrived to throw on each of 
the dramatis personce, perfectly appropriate to hi* 
character. The compliment to Sir Robert, the blunt 
soldier, is particularly fine. In short, this composi- 
tion, in my opinion, does you great honour, and 1 see 
not a line or word in it which I could wish to be al- 
tered. 

As to the Lament, I suspect from some expressions 
in your letter to me that you are more doubtful with 
respect to the merits of this piece than of the other ; 
and I own 1 think you have reason ; for although it 
contains some beautiful stanzas, as the first, " The 
wind blew hollow," &c. ; the filth, " Ye scattcr'd 
birds ;" the thirteenth, " Awake thy last sad voice," 
&c. ; yet it appears to me faulty as a whole, and infe- 
rior to several of those you have already published ia 
the same strain. My principal objection lies against 
the plan of the piece. I think it was unnecessary and 
improper to put the lamentation in the mouth of a fic- 
titious character, an aged baid. — It had been mucli 
better to have lamented your patron in your own per- 
son, to have expressed your genuine feelings for the 
loss, and to have spoken the language of nature, rather 
than that of fiction, on the subject. Compare this witk 
your poem of the same title in your printed volume, 
which begins, O thou pale Orb ; and observe what it 
is that forms the charm of that composition. It is that 
it speaks the language of truth and of nature. The 
change is, in my opinion injudicious too in this resjsect, 
that an aged bard has much less need of a patron and 
a protector than a. young one. I have thus giyenyou, 
with much freedom, my opinion of both the pieces. I 
should have made a very ill return to the compliment 
you paid me, if 1 had given you any other than my 
genuine sentiments. 

It will give me great pleasure to hear from you when 
you find leisure ; and I beg you will believe me ever 
dear Sir, yours, &c. 



No. CXXVI. 

TO MISS DAVIES. 

It is impossible, Madam, that the generous warmth 
and angelic purity of your youthful mind can have aay 
idea of that moral disease under which 1 unhappily 
must rank as the chief of sinners ; I mean a turpitude 
of the moral powers that may be called a lethargy of 
conscience — In vain Remorse rears her horrent crest, 

d rouses all her snakes : beneath the deadly fixed 
eye and leaden hand of Indolence, their wildest ire is 
charmed into the torpor of a bat, slumbering out the 
rigours of winter in the chink of a ruined wall. Noth- 
ing less, Madam, could have made me so long neglect 
your obliging commands. Indeed 1 had one apology— 
the baeatelle was not worth presenting. Besides, so 
strongfy am I interested in Miss D 's fate and 



JO 



LETTERS. 



Welfare In the Beriou9 business of life, amid its chances 
and changes ; that to make her the subject of a sil- 
ly ballad, is downright mockery of these ardent feel- 
ings ; 'tis like an impertinent jest to a dying friend. 

Gracious Heaven! why this disparity between our 
wishes and our powers ! Why is the most generous 
wish to make others blessed, impotent and ineffectual 
— -as the idle breeze that crosses the pathless desert ? 
In my walks of life I have met with a few people to 
whom how gladly would 1 have said — " Gobe happy !" 
1 know that your hearts have been wounded by the 
scorn of the proud, whom accident has placed above 
you — or worse still, in whose hands are, perhaps, 
placed many of the comforts of your life. But there ! 
ascend that rock, Independence, and look justly down 
on their littleness of soul. Make the worthless trem- 
ble under your indignation, and the foolish sink before 
your contempt ; and largely impart that happiness to 
others which I am certain, will give yourselves so much 
pleasure to bestow." 

Why, dear Madam, must I wake from this delightful 
dream ? Why, amid my generous enthusiasm, must 
I find myself poor and powerless, incapable of wiping 
one tear from the eye of pity, or of adding one com- 
fort to the friend I love !— Out upon the world I say I, 
that its affairs are administered so ill I They talk 
of reform ;— good Heaven what a reform would 1 make 
among the sons, and even the daughters of men! — 
Down immediately should go fools from the high places 
where misbegotten chance has perked them up, and 
through life should they skulk, ever haunted by their 
native insignificance, as the body marches accom- 
panied by its shadow. — As for a much more formida- 
ble class, the knaves, I am at a loss what to do with 
them : — had I a world, there should not be a knave in 



Hut the hand that could give, I would liberally fill ; 
and I would pour delight on the heart that could kind- 
ly forgive and generously love. 

Still, the inequalities of life are, among men, compa- 
ratively tolerable — but there is a delicacy, a tender- 
derness, accompanying every view in which we can 
place lovely Woman, that are grated and shocked at 
the rude, capricious distinctions of fortune. Wo- 
man is the blood royal of life : let there be slight 
degrees of precedency among them— but let them 
be all sacred. Whether this last sentiment be right or 
wrong, I am not accountable ; it is an original compo- 
nent feature of my mind. 



No. CXXVII. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

Ellisland, nth December 1791. 
Many thanks to you, Madam, for your good news 
respecting the little floweret and the mother-plant. I 
hope my poetic prayers have been heard, and will be 
answered up to the warmest sincerity of their fullest 
extent; and then Mrs. Henri will find her little dar- 
ling the representative of hi3 late parent, in every thing 
but his abridged existence. 

I have just finished the following song, which, to 
a lady the descendant of Wallace, and many heroes 
of his truly illustrious line, and herself the mother 
of several soldiers needs neither preface nor apology. 



Scene— A Field of Battle— Time of the Day, Even- 
ing — the wounded and dying of t/ievictorious Army 
are supposed to join in the following 

SONG OF DEATH. 
Farewell thou fair day, thou green earth, and ye 
skies, 
Now gay with the broad setting sun ! 



Farewell loves and friendships ; ye dear tend* 
ties, 
Our race of existence is run 1 

Thou grim king of terrors, thou life's gloomy foe, 

Go frighten the coward and slave ; 
Go, teach them to tremble, fell tyrant! but know, 

No terrors hast thou to the brave 

Thou strik'st the poor peasant— he sinks in the 
dark, 

Nor saves e'en the wreck of a name ; 
Thou strik'st the young hero— a glorious mark, 

He falls in the blaze of his fame ! 



In the field of proud honour— our swords 
hands, 

Our king and our country to save— 
While victory shines on life's last ebbing 

O, who would not die with the brave ? 



The circumstance that gave rise to the foregoing 
verses, was looking over, with a musical friend, M'- 
Donald's collection of Highland airs, I was struck with 
one, an Isle of Shye tune, entitled Oran an Aoig, or, 
The Song of Death, to the measure of which 1 have 
adapted my stanzas. I have of late composed two or 
three other little pieces, which, ere yon full-orbed 
moon, whose broad impudent face, now stares at old 
mother earth all night, shall have shrunk into a mod- 
est crescent, just peeping forth at dewy dawn, I shall 
find an hour to transcribe to you. A Dieu je vout 
commende. 



No. CXXVIII. 



TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

5th January, 1792. 
You see my hurried life, Madam : I can only com- 
mand starts of time: however, I am glad of one thing ; 
since I finished the other sheet, the political blast that 
threatened my welfare is overblown. I have corres- 
ponded with Commissioner Graham, for the Board 
had made me the subject of their animadversions: 
and now I have the pleasure of informing you, that 
all is set to rights in that quarter. Now as to these 
informers, may the devil be let loose to but 

hold! 1 was praying most fervently in my last sheet, 
and I must not so soon fall a swearing iu this. 

Alas ! how little do the wantonly or idle officious 
think what mischief they do by their malicious insinua- 
tions, indiscreet impertinence, or thoughtless blab- 
bings ! What a uifference there is in intrinsic worth, 
candour, benevolence, generosity, kindness — in all the 
charities and all the virtues, between one class of hu- 
man beings and another I For instance, the amiable 
circle I so lately mixed with in the hospitable hall of 

D , their generous hearts — their uncontaminated, 

dignified minds — their informed and polished under- 
standings—what a contrast; when compared — if such 
comparing were not downright sacrilege — with the 
soul of the miscreant who candeliberately plot the de- 
struction of an honest man that never offended hiro, 
and with a grin of satisfaction see the unfortunate be- 
ing, his faithful wife and prattling innocents, turned 
over to beggary and ruin. 

Your cup, my dear Madam, arrived safe. I had two 
worthy fellows dining with me the other day, when I 
with great formality, produced my whigmeleerie cup, 
and told them that it had been a family-piece among 

* This is a little altered from the one Wen in r- 83, 
of the Poems. 



LETTERS. 



Ill 



the descendants of Sir William Wallace. This rous- 
ed audi an enthusiasm, that they insisted on bum- 
pering the punch round in it ; and, by and by, never 
did your great ancestor lay a Sutkron more complete- 
ly at rest, than for a time did your cup my two friends. 
A-propos.' this is the season of wishing. May God 
bless you, my dear friend ! and bless me, the humblest 
and sincerest of your friends, by granting you yet 
many returns of the season ! May all good things at- 
tend you and your* wherever they are scattered over 
the earth 1 



No. CXXIX. 

TO MR. WILLIAM SMELLIE, PRINTER. 
Dumfries, ! £U January, 1792. 

I sit down, my dear Sir, to introduce a young lady to 
you, and a lady in the first rank of fashion, too. What 
a task ! to you — who care no more for the herd of ani- 
mals called young ladies, than you do for the herd of 
animals called young gentlemen. To you — who despise 
and detest the groupings and combinations of fashion, 
as an idiot painter that seems industrious to place 
staring fools and unprincipled knaves in the foreground 
of his picture, while men of sense and honesty are too 
often thrown in the dimmest shades Mrs. Riddle, 
who will take this letter to town with her, and send it 
to you, is a character that, even in yo ir own way as 
a naturalist and a philosopher, would be an acquisi- 
tion to your acquaintance. The lady too is a votary 
of the muses ; and as 1 think myself somewhat of a 
judge in my own trade, I assure you that her verses, 
always correct, and often elegant, are much beyond 
the common run ofthe lady poetess of the day. She is 
a great admirer of your book; and, hearing me say 
that I was acquainted with you, she begged to be 
known to you, as she is just going to pay her first visit to 
our Caledonian capital. I told her that her best way 
was, to desire her near relation, and your intimate 
friend, Craigdarroch, to have you at his house while 
she was there, and lest you might think of a lively West 
Indian girl of eighteen, as girls of eighteen too often 
deserve to be thought of, I should take care to remove 
that prejudice. To be impartial, however, in appre- 
ciating the lady's merits, she has one unlucky failing, 
a failing which you will easily discover as she seems 
rather pleased with indulging in it ; and a failing that 
you will as easily pardon, as it is a sin which very much 
besets yourself ; — whei e she dislikes or despises, she is 
apt to make no more a secret of it, than where she es- 
teems and respects. 

I will not present you with unmeaning compliments 
of the season, but I will send you my warmest wishes 
and most ardent prayers, that fortune may never 
throw your subsistence to the mercy of a knave, or set 
your character on the judgment of a fool ; but that, 
upright and erect, you may walk to an honest grave, 
where men of letters shall say, Here lies a man who 
did honour to science ! and men of worth shall say, 
Here lies a man who did honour to human nature 1 



cxxx. 

TO MR. W. NICOL. 

207A February, 1792. 
O thou, wisest among the wise, meridian blaze of 
prudence, full moon of discretion, and chief of many 
counsellors ! How infinitely is thy puddled headed, 
rattle-headed, wrong-headed round-headed slave indeb- 
ted to thy supereminent goodness, that from the lumin- 
ous path of thy own right-lined rectitude, thou lookest 
benignly down on an erring wretch, of whom the zig-zag 
wanderings defy all the powers of calculation, from the 
simple copulation of units up to the hidden mysteries of 
fluxions : May one feeble ray of that light of wisdom 
which darts from thy sensoriura straight as the arrow 



of heaven, and brignt as the meteor of inspiration, may 
it be my portion, so that I may be less unworthy of the 
face and favour of that father of proverbs and master 
of maxims, that antipodeof folly, and magnet among 
the sages, the wise and witty Willie Nicol ! Amen! 
Amenl Yea, so be it I 

For me ! I am a bea6t, a reptile, and know nothing 1 
Prom the cave of my ignorance, amid the fogs of my 
dulness, and pestilential fumes of my political here- 
sies, 1 look up to thee, as doth a toad through the iron- 
barred lucerne of a pestiferous dungeon, to the cloud- 
less glory of a summer sun I Sorely sighing in bitter- 
ness of soul, 1 say, when shall my name be the quota- 
tion ofthe wise, and my countenance be the delight of 
the godly, like the illustrious lord of Laggan's many 
hills ?* As for him, his works are perfect ; never did the 
pen of calumny blur the fair page of his reputation, 
nor the bolt of hatred fly at his dwelling. k 



Thou mirror of purity, when shall the elfine lamp of 
my glimmerous understanding, purged from sensual 
appetites and gross desires, shine like the constellation 
of thy intellectual powers! As for thee, thy thoughts 
are pure, and thy lips are holy. Never did the un- 
hallowed breath of the powers of darkness, and the, 
pleasures of darkness pollute the sacred flame of thy 
sky-descended and heaven-bound desires : never did 
the vapours of impurity stain the unclouded serene of 
thy cerulean imagination. O that like thine were the 
tenor of my life! like thine the tenor of my conversation ! 
then should no friend fear for my strength, no enemy 
rejoice in my weakness ! then should I lie down and 
rise up, and none to make me afraid. May thy pity 
and thy prayer be exercised for, O thou lamp of wis- 
dom and mirror of morality ! thy devoted slave.f 



No. CXXXI. 

TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

3d March, 1792. 
Since I wrote you the last lugrubrious sheet, I have 
had not time to write you farther. When I say that I 
had not time, that, as usual, means, that the thre» 
demands, indolence, business, and ennui, have so 
completely shared my hours among them, as not to 
leave me a five minutes' fragment to take up a pen 
in. 

Thank heaven, I feel my spirits buoying upwards 
with the renovating year. Now I shall in good earnest 
take up Thomson's songs. I dare say he thinks I have 
used him unkindly, and I must own with too much ap- 
pearance of truth, A-propos 1 Do you know the much 
admired old Highland air, called The tutor's Doch- 
ter? It is a first-rate favourite of mine, and I have 
written what I reckon one of my best songs to it. I 
will send it to you as it was sung with great applause 
in some fashionable circles by Major Robertson of 
Lude, who was here with his corps. 



There is one commission that I must trouble you 
with. I lately lost a valuable seal, a present from a 
departed friend, which vexes me much. I have gotten 
one of your Highland pebbles, which I fancy would 
make a very decent one ; and I want to cut my armo- 
rial bearing on it ; will you be so obliging as inquire 
what will be the expense of such a business? I do not 
know that my name is matriculated, aB the heralds 
call it, at all ; but I have invented arms for myself, so 
you know I shall be chief of the name ; and, by cour- 
tesy of Scotland, will likewise be entitled to support- 

* Mr. Nicol. 
t This strain of irony was excited by a letter of Mr, 
Nicol, containing good advice. 



112 



LETTERS. 



ars. These, however, I do not intend having on my 
seal. I am a bit of a herald, and shall give you, se- 
cundum artem, my arms. On a field, azure, a holly 
bush, seeded, proper, in base ; a shepherd's pipe and 
erook ,iSaltier-wise, also proper, in chief. On a wreath 
of the colours, a wood-lark perching on a sprig of bay 
tree, proper, for crest. Two mottoes : round the top 
of the crest, Wood notes wild ; at the bottom of the 
shield, in th6 usual place, Better a wee bush than nae 
bield. By the shepherd's pipe and crook I do not mean 
the nonsense of painters of Arcadia, but a Stock and 
Horn, and a Club, such as you see at the head of Allan 
Ramsay, in Allan's quarto edition of the Gentle Shep- 
herd. By the by, do you know Allan ? He must be a 
man of very great genius — Why is lie not more known ? 
Has he no patrons i or do "Poverty's cold wind and 
crushing rain beat keen and -heavy" on him ? 1 once, 
and but once, got a glance of that noble edition of that 
noblest pastoral in the world ; and dear as it was, I 
mean, dear as to my pocket, I would have bought it ; 
but I was told that it was printed and engraved for 
subscribers only. He is the only artist who has hit 
genuine pastoral costume. What, my dear Cunning- 
ham, is therein riches, that they narrow and harden 
the heart so ? I think, that were I as rich as the sun, 
I should be as generous as the day ; but as I have no 
reason to imagine my soul a nobler one than any oili- 
er man's, I must conclude that wealth imparts a bird- 
lime quality to the possessor, at which the man, in his 
native poverty would have revolted. What has led 
me to this, is the idea of such merit as Mr. Allan pos- 
sesses, and such riches as a nabob or government con- 
tractor possesses, and why they do not form a mutual 
league. Let wealth shelter and cherish unprotected 
merit, and the gratitude and celebrity of that merit 
will richly repay it. 



No. CXXXII 

TOMRS.DUNLOP. 

Annan Water Foot, ZZd August, 1792. 
Do not blame me for it Madam — my own conscience, 
hackneyed and weather-beaten as it is, in watching 
and reproving my vagaries, follies, indolence, &c. has 
continued to blcme and punish me sufficiently. 



Do you think it possible, my dear and honoured 
friend, that I could be so lost to gratitude for many fa- 
vours ; to esteem for much worth, and to the honest, 
kind, pleasurable tie of, now old acquaintance, and I 
hope and am sure of progressive, increasing friendship 
—as, for a single day, not to think of you— to ask the 
Fates what they are doing and about to do with my 
much-loved friend and her wide-scattered connexions, 
and to beg of them to be as kind to you and yours as 
they possibly can ? 

Apropos ! (though how it is a-pfopos, 1 have not lei- 
sure to explain.) Do you know that 1 am almost in 
love with an acquaintance of yours ?— Almost ! said 
I — I am in love, souse ! over head and ears, deep as 
the most unfathomable abyss of the boundless ocean ; 
but the word Love, owing to the inlermingledoms of 
the good and the bad, the pure and the impure, in this 
world, being rather an equivocal term for expressing 
one's sentiments and sensations, I must do justice to 
the sacred purity of my attachment. Know, then, 
that the heart struck awe ; the distant, humble ap 
proach ; the delight we should have in gazing upon 
and listening to a Messenger of heaven, appearing in 
all the unspotted purity of his celestial home, among 
.he coarse, polluted, far inferior sons of men, todeliver 
to them tidings that make their hearts swim in joy, and 
their imaginations soar in transport— such, so delight- 
ing and so pure, were the emotion of my soul on meet- 
ing the other day with Miss L— B--, your neighbour; 
aA M . Mr. B. with his two daughters accompa- 



nied by Mr. H. of G., passing through Dumfries afetr 
days ago, on their way to England, did me thehonoor 
of calling on me ; on which I took my horse (though 
God knows I could ill spare the time,) and accompanied 
them fourteen or fifteen miles, and dined and spent the 
day with them. 'Twas about nine, I think, when t 
left them ; and, riding home, I composed the following 
ballad, of which you will probably think you have H 
dear bargain, as it will cost you another groat of 
postage. You must know that there is an old ballad 
beginning with 

" My bonnie Lizie Bailie, 
I'll rowe thee in my plaidie." 

So T parodied it as follows, which is literally the first 

copy, " unanointed, unanneal'd ;" as Hamlet says. - 

" O saw ye bonnie Lesley," &c. 

So much for ballads. I regret that you are gone to 
the east country, as I am to be in Ayrshire in about a 
fortnight. This world of ours, notwithstanding it has 
many good things in it, yet it has ever had this curse, 
thai two or three people, who would be the happier the 
olteuer they met together, are almost without excep- 
tion, always so placed as never to meet but once or 
twice a-year, which, considering the few years of a 
man's life, is a very great " evil under the sun," which 
1 do not recollect that Solomon has mentioned in his 
catalogue of the miseries of man. I hope and believe 
that there is a state of existence beyond the grave, 
where the worthy of this life will renew their former 
intimacies, with this endearing addition, that, " we 
meet to part no more !" 



" Tell us ye dead, 
Will none of you in pity disclose the secret 
What 'tis you are, and we must shortly be ?' 

A thousand times have I made this apostrophe to tba 
departed sons of men, but not one of them has ever 
thought fit to answer the question. " O that soma 
courteous ghost would blab it out I" but it cannot be ; 
you and 1, my friend, must make the experiment by 
ourselves, and for ourselves. However, 1 am so,con- 
vinced that an unshaken failh in the doctrines of reli- 
gion is not only necessary, by making us better men, 
but also by making us happier men, that I shall take 
every care that your little godson, and every little 
creature that shall call me father, shall be taught 
them. 

So ends this heterogeneous letter, written at thi» 
wild place of the world, in the intervals of my labour 
of discharging a vessel of rum from Antigua. 



No. CXXXIII. 

TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

Dumfries, Wth September, 1792. 
No! I will not attempt an apology—Amid all my 
hurry of business grinding the faces of the publican 
and the sinner on the merciless wheels of the Excise; 
making ballads, and then drinking, and singing them; 
and, over and above all, the correcting the press-work 
of two different publications, still, still I might have 
stolen five minutes to dedicate to one of the first of my 
friends and fellow-creatures. I might have done, as 1 
do at present, snatched an hour near " witching time 
of night," and scrawled a page or two. I might have 
congratulated my friend on his marriage, or I might 
have thanked the Caledonian archers for the honour 
they have done me (though to do myself justice, I in- 
tended to have done both in rhyme, else I had done 
both long ere now.) Well, then, here is to your good 
health ! for you most know I have set a nipperkin of 
toddy by me, just by way of spell, to keep awr>y tha 
meikle horned Deil, or any of his subaltern imps who 
may be >u their nightly round*, 



LETTERS. 



113 



But what shall I write to you ? "The voice said, 
Cry I and I said, What shall I cry?" — 0, thou spirit I 
whatever thou art, or wherever thou makest thyself 
■"isible ! be thou a bogle by the eerie side of an auld 
thorn, in the dreary glen through which the herd callan 
mauu bickei in Ins gloainin route frae the faulde ! Be 
thou a browi ie, set, at dead of nighi, to thy task by 
the blazing ingle, or in the solitary barn, where the re- 
percussions of thy iron Hail half ari'right thyself as 
thou performest the work of twenty of the sons of men, 
<rre the cock-crowing summon thee to thy ample cog oi 
substantial brose. Be thou a kelpie, haunting the ford 
or ferry, in the starless night, mixing thy laughing 
yell with the howling of the storm and the roaring of 
the flood, as thou viewest the perils and miseries of 
man on the foundering horse, or in the tumbling boat ! 
Or, lastly, be thou a ghost, paying thy nocturnal visits 
to the hoary ruins of decayed grandeur ; or performing 
thy mystic rites in the shadow of the time-worn church, 
while the moon looks, without a cloud, on the silent 
ghastly dwellings of the dead around thee ; or taking 
thy stand by the bedside of the villain, or the murder- 
er, portraying on his dreaming fancy, pictures, dread- 
ful as the horrors of unveiled hell, and terrible as the 
wrath of incensed Deity 1 Come, thou spirit ! but not 
in these horrid forms : come with the milder, gentle, 
easy inspirations which thou breathesl round the wig 
of a prating advocate, or the tele of a tea-sipping gos- 
sip, while their tongues run at the light-horse gallop of 
clish-maciaver for ever and ever— come and assist a 
poor devil who is quite jaded in the attempt to share 
half an idea among half a hundred words ; to fill up 
four quarto pages, while he has not got one single sen- 
tence of recollection, information, or remark, worth 
putting pen to paper for. 

I feel, I feel the presence of supernatural assistance ! 
circled hi the embrace of my elbow-chair, my breast 
labours like the bloated Sibyl on her three footed stool, 
and like her too, labours with Nonsense. Nonsense 
auspicious name ! Tutor, friend, and finger-post iri 
the mystic mazes of law ; the cadaverous paths of phy- 
sic ; and particularly in the sightless soarings of 
School Divinity, who leaving Common Sense con- 
founded at his strength of pinion, Reason, delirious 
with eyeing his giddy flight ; ami Truth creeping back 
into the bottom of her well, cursing the hour that ever 
she offered her scorned alliance to the wizard power of 
Theologic Vision — raves abroad on all the winds. 
" On earth, Discord ! a gloomy Heaven above opening 
her jealous gates to the nineteen thousandth part of 
the tithe of mankind ! and below, an inescapable and 
inexorable Hell, expanding its leviathan jaws for the 
vast residue of mortals !! !" O doctrine! comforta- 
ble and healing to the weary, wounded soul of man I 
Ye sons and daughters of affliction, yepauvres miser- 
ables, to whom day brings no pleasure, and night 
yields no rest, be comforted ! " 'Tis but one to nine- 
teen hundred thousand that your situation will mend 
In this world ;" so, alas ! the experience of the poor 
and the needy too often affirms; and, 'tis nineteen 
hundred thousand to on", by the dogmas of '••••••• ) 

that you will be damned eternally in the world to 
come ! 

But of all Nonsense, Religious Nonsense is the 
most nonsensical ; so enough, and more than enough, 
of it. Only, by the by, will you, or can you tell me, 
my dear Cunningham, why a sectarian turn of mind 
has always a tendency to narrow and illiberalize the 
heart? They are orderly : they may be just ; nay, I 
have known them merciful ; but still your children of 
sanctity move among their fellow-creatures, with a nos- 
tril snuffing putrescence, and a foot-spurning filth ; in 
short, with a conceited dignity that your titled * * *.* 
or any other of your Scottish lordlings of seven centu- 
ries' -standing, display when they accidentally mix 
among the many-aproned sons of mechanical life. 1 
remember, in my plough-boy days, 1 could not conceive 
it possible that a noble lord could be a fool, or a godly 
man could be a knave. How ignorant are plough- 
boys ! Nay, I have since discovered that a godly wo- 
man may be a ***** ! But hold — Here's t'ye 
again--this rum is generous Antigua, so a very unfit 
meci'.rum for scandal. 



Apropos ; How do you like, I mean really, like the 
1 married life ? Ah ! my friend, matrimony is quite a 
I different thing from what your love-sick youths and 
sighing girls take it to be I But marriage, we are told, 
is appointed by God, and I shall never quarrel with 
any of his institutions, i am a husband of older stand- 
ing than you, and shall give you my ideas of the con- 
jugal state (en passant, yon know 1 am no Latinist : is 
not conjugal derived from jugum, a yoke ?) Well, 
then the scale of good wifeship I divide into ten parts : 
Good-nature, four ; Good Sense, two ; Wit, one ; Per- 
sonal Charms, viz. a sweet face, eloquent eyes, fine 
limbs, graceful carriage (1 would add a fine waist too, 
but that is soon spoiled you know,) all these, one ; as 
for the other qualities belonging to, or attending on, a 
wife, such as Fortune, Connexions, Education, (I 
mean education extraordinary,) Family Blood, &c, 
divide the two remaining degrees among them as you 
please ; only remember that all these minor properties 
must be expressed by fractions, for there is not any 
one of them in the aforesaid scale, entitled to the dig- 
nity of an integer. 

As for the rest of my fancies and reveries--how I late- 
ly met with Miss L B , the most beautiful, 

elegant woman in the world— how I accompanied her 
and her father's family fifteen miles on their journey 
out of pure devotion, to admire the loveliness of the 
works of God, in such an unequalled display of them — 
how, in galloping home at night, I made a ballad on 
her, of which these two stanzas made a part : 

Thou, bonnie L , art a queen, 

Thy subjects we before thee ; 

Thou, bonnie L , art divine, 

The hearts o' men adore thee. 

The very Deil he could na scathe 

Whatever wad helang thee ! 
He'd look into thy bonnie face, 

And say, " 1 canna wrang thee 1" 

— Behold all these things are written in the chronicles 
of my imaginations, and shall be read by thee, my 
dear friend, and by thy beloved spouse, my other dear 
friend, at a more convenient season. 

Now, to thee, and to thy before designed bosom- 
companion, be given the precious things brought forth 
by the sun, and the precious things brought forth by the 
moon, and the benignest influences of the stars, and 
the living streams which flow from the fountains of life, 
and by the tree of life, for ever and ever 1 Amen ! 



No. CXXXIV. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

Dumfries, 24th September, 1792. 
1 have this moment, my dear Madam, yours of the 
twenty-third. All your other kind reproaches, your 
news, &c. are out of my head when I read and think on 
Mrs. H 's situation. Good God! a heart-wound- 
ed, helpless youngwoman — in a stiange, foreign land, 
and that land convulsed with every horror that cap 
harrow the human feelings — sick — looking, longing for 
a comforter, but finding none— a mother's feelings too 
— but it is too much : He who wounded (He only can) 
may he heal 1" 



I wish the farmer great joy of his new acquisition to 
his family, • « • « 1 cannot say that I give 
nim joy of his life as a farmer. 'Tis, as a farmer pay- 
ing a dear, unconscionable rent, a cursed life I As to 
a laird farming his own property ; sowing his own corn 

* This much lamented lady was gone to the south of 
France with her infant son, where she died soon after 



u 



LETTERS. 



n hope ; and reaping it, in spite of brittle weather, in 
gladness : knowing Unit nune can say unto him, " what 
dost thou !"— fattening his heuls ; shearing Ins flocks ; 
rejoicing at Christmas : and begetting sons and daugh- 
ters, until he be the venerated, gi -ay-haired leader of a 
lillls tribe — 'lis u heavenly life I — But devil take the life 
of reaping the fruits that another most eat I 

Well, your kind wishes will be gratified, as to seeing 
me, when 1 make my Ayrshire visit. 1 cannot leave 

Mrs. B until her nine months' race is run, which 

may perhaps be in three or four weeks. She, too, seems 
determined to make me the patriarchal leader of a 
band. However, if Heaven will be so obliging as to 
1*1 u>< have them in proportion of three boys to one 
girl, 1 shall be so much the more pleased. 1 hope, if I 
am spared with them, to show a set of boys that will do 
honour to my cares and name ; but I am not equal \o 
the task of rearing girls. Besides, I am too poor : a girl 
should always have a fortune. A propos ; your hllle 
godson is thriving charmingly, but is a very devil. He, 
though two years younger, lias completely mastered bis 
brother. Robert is indeed the mildest, gentlest crea- 
ture I ever saw. He has a most surprising memory, 
and is quite the pride of his schoolmaster. 

You know how readily we get into prattle upon a 
subject dear to our heart : You can excuse it. God 
bless you and yours I 



No. CXXXV 



TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

Supposed to have been written on the Death of Mrs. 
H , her daughter. 

I had been from home, and did not receive your let- 
ter until my return the other day. What shall 1 say 
tocomfort you, my much valued, much .dilute I friend ! 
I can but grieve with you ; consolation I have none to 
offer, except that which religion holds out to the chil 
dren of affliction — Children of affliction .' — how just 
the expression ! and like every otlur family, they have 
matters among them, which they hear, see, and led in 
a serious, all-important manner, of which the world 
bas not, nor cares to have, any idea. The world looks 
indifferently on, makes the passing remark, and pro- 
ceeds to the next novel 



Alas, Madam ! who would wish for many years? 
What is it but to drag existence until our joys gi adual- 
ly expire, and leave us in a night of misery ; like the 
gloom which blots out the stars one by one, from the 
lace of night, and leaves us without a ray of comfort in 
the howling waste 1 

lam interrupted, and must leave off. You shall soon 
hear from me again. 



No. CXXXVI. 

TO MRS. PUNLOP. 

Dumfries, 6ih December, 1792. 
I shall be in Ayrshire, I think next week ; and, if at 
•1! possible, 1 shall certainly, my much-esteemed friend, 

have the pleasure of visiting at Dunlop House. 

Alas, Madam ! how se.dom do we meet in this world 
that we have reason to congratulate ourselves "on ac- 
cessions of happiness 1 1 have not passed half the or- 
dinary term of an old man's * i t"e , and yet I scarcely 
look over the obituary of a newspaper, that 1 do not 
see some names that 1 have known, and other ac- 
quaintances, little thought to meet with there so soon. 
Every other instance of the mortality of our kind makes 
us cast an anxious look in the dreadful abiss of uncer- 
tainty, and shudder with apprehension for our own 
faith. But of how different an importance are the lives 



of different individuals? Nay, of what importance M 
one period of the same life more than another ? A few 
years ago, 1 could have lain down in the dust, "care- 
less of the voice of the morning;" and now not a few, 
and these most helpless individuals, would, on losing 
me and my exertions, lose both their "staff and 
shield." By the way, these helpless ones have lately 

got an addition, Mrs. B having given me a fine 

gill since I wrote you. There is a charming passage 
in Thomson's Edward and Eleanora — 

" The valliant in himself, what can he suffer ? 

Or what need he regard hi3 single woes 7" &c. 

As 1 am got in the way of quotations, I shall give 
you another from the same piece, peculiarly, alas I 
too peculiarly apposite, my dear Madam, to your 
present frame of mind : 

" Who so unworthy but may proudly deck him 
With his fair-weather virtue, that exultsi 
Glad o'er the summer main ? the tempest comes, 
The rough winds rage aloud ; when from the helm 
This virtue shrinks, and in a corner lies 
Lamenting — Heavens! if pi.vilegedfrom trial, 
How cheap a thing were virtue 1" 

I do not remember to have heard you mention 
Thomson's dramas. I pick up favourite quotations, 
and store them in my mind as ready armour, offensive 
or defensive, ami 1 the struggle of ibis turbulent ex- 
istence. Of these is one, a very favourite one, from his 
Alfred : 

" Attach thee firmly to the virtuous deeds 

And ollices of life ; to life itself, 

With all its vain and li ansient joys, sit loose." 

Probably I have quoted some of these to you former- 
ly, as indeed when 1 write from the heart, 1 am apl to 
he guilty of such repetitious. The compass of the heart, 
in the musical style ol expression, is much more bound- 
ed than thai of the imagination ; so the notes of the 
lorniri- are extremely apt to i uu into one another ; but 
in return for the paucity of us compass, its few notes 
are much more sweet. 1 must suil give you another 
quotation, which 1 am ahnus; sure i have given you 
before, bill 1 cannot resist the temptation. The subject 
is religion— speaking ol us importance to mankind, 
the author says, 

" ' Tis this, my friend, thai streaks our mo-niug 

bright, 
'Tis this that gilds the horror of our night, 
When wealth foisakes us, and when fi iends are few ; 
When friends are faithless, or when foes pursue ; 
'Tis this that wards the blow, or stills the smart, 
Disarms affliction, 01 repels bis dart ; 
Within the breast bids purest raptures rise, 
Bids smiling conscience spread her cloudless skies." 

I see yon are in for a double postage, sol shall e'en 
scribble" out t'other sheet. We, in this country here, 
have many alarms of the reforming, or rather the re- 
publican spirit, of your part of the kingdom. Indeed, 
we are a good deal in commotion ourselves. Forme, 
[ am aplaceman, you know: a very humble one in- 
deed, Heaven knows, butstill so much so as to gag me. 
What my private sentiments are, you will find out 
without an interpreter. 



I have taken up the subject in another view, and the 
other day, for a pretty Actresses's benelitnight, I wrote 
an Address, which I will give on the other page, called 
The Rights of Woman.' 

I shall have the honour of receiving your criticisms in 
persou at Dunlop. 



See Poems, p. 



LETTERS. 



115 



No. CXXXVII. 



TO MISS B« 



OF YORK. 



•2Ut March, 1792. 
MADAM, 

Among many things for which I envy those hale, 
.ong-lived old fellows before the flood, is this in parti- 
cular, that when they met with any body alter their 
own heart, they had a charming long prospect of many, 
many happy meetings with them in afterlife. 

Now, in this short, stormy, winter day of our fleet 
ing existence, when you, now and then, in the Chap- 
ter of Accidents, meet an individual whose acquaint- 
ance is a real acquisition, where all the probabilities 
against you, that you shall never meet with that valu- 
ed character more. On the other hand, brief as this 
miserable being is, it in none of the least of the miser- 
ies belonging to it, that if there is any miscreant whom 
you hate, or creature whom you despise, the ill run of 
the chances shall be so against you, that in the over- 
takings, turnings, and joRlIings of life, pop, at some 
unlucky corner eternally comes the wretch upon you, 
and will not allow your imagination or contempt a 
moment's repose. As I am a sturdy believer in the 
powers of darkness, I take these to be the doings of 
that old author of mischief, the devil. I lis well known 
that he has some kind of short-hand way of taking 
down our thoughts, and 1 make no doubt that he is 
perfectly acquainted with my sentiments respecting 

Miss B ; how much I admired her abilities, and 

valued her worth, and how very fortunate 1 thought 
myself in her acquaintance. For this last reason, my 
dear Madam, I must entertain no hopes of the very 
great pleasure of meeting with you again. 

Miss II tells me that she is sending a packet to 

you, and I beg leave to send you the enclosed sonnet, 
though, to tell you the real truth, the sonnet is a mere 
pretence, that I may have the opportunity of declaring 
with how much respectful esteem I have the honour to 
be.&c. 



No. CXXXVIII. 

TO MISS C"". 

August, 1793. 
MADAM, 

Some rather unlooked-for accidents have prevented 
my doing myself the honour of a second visit to Arbeig- 
laud, as I was so hospitably invited, and so positive- 
ly meant to have done. However, 1 still hope to 
have that pleasure before '.he busy months of harvest 
begin. 

I enclose you two of my late pieces, as some kind or 
return for the pleasure 1 have received in perusing a 
certain MSS. volume of poem3 in the possession of 
Captain Riddel. To repay one with an old so.g, is a 
proverb, whose force, you, Madam, I know, will not 
allow. What is said of illustrious descent is. I believe 
equally true of a talent for poefy, mine ever despised 
who had pretensions to it. The fates and characters 
of the rhyming trib>i often employ my thoughts when I 
am disposed to be melancholy. There is not among 
all the martyrologies that ever were penned, so rueful a 
narrative as' the lives of the poets. In the compara- 
tive viewofwretches, the criterion is not what they are 
doomed to suffer, but how thev are formed to bear.— 
Take a being of our kind, give him a stronger irnagina- 
tion and a more delicate sensibility, which between 
them will ever engender a more ungovernable set of 
passions than are the usual bt of man ; implant in 
him an irresistible impulse of some idle vagary, such as 
arranging wildflower3 in fantastical nosegay*, tracing 
the grasshopper to'l;i3 haunt by his chirping song, 
watching the frisks of the little minnows in the Many 
pool, or hunting after the intrigues of butterflies— in 
•hort, send him adrift after some pursuit which shall 
eternally mislead him from the path* of lucre, and yet 



curse him with a keener relish than any man livinr 
fur the pleasures that lucre can purchase : lastly, £U 
up the measure of his woes by bestowing on him a 
spurning sense of his own dignity, and you have created 
a wight nearly as miserable as a poet. To you, 
Madam, I need not recount the fairy pleasures tbfl 
muse bestows to counterbalance this catalogue of evils. 
Bewitching poetry is like bewitching woman ; she has 
in all ages been accused of misleading mankind from 
the counsels of wisdom and the paths of prudence, in- 
volving them in difficulties, bailing them with poverty, 
branding them with infamy, and plunging thein in the 
whirling vortex of ruin ; yet where is the man but 
must own that all our happiness on earth is not wor- 
thy the name — that even the holy hermit's solitary 
prospect of paradisical bliss is but the glitter of a 
northern sun rising over a frozen region, compared 
with the many pleasures, the nameless raptures that 
we owe to the lovely tiueen of the heart of Man ! 



No. CXXXIX. 



TO JOHN M'MURDO, ESQ,. 

December, 1793. 
SIR, 

It is said that we take the greatest liberties with our 
greatest friends, and I pay myself a very high compli- 
ment in the manner in which I am going to apply the 
remark. I have owed you money longer than ever I 
owed to any man. Here is Ker's account, and here 
are six guineas ; and now, I don't owe a shilling to 
man — or woman either. But for these damned dirty, 
dog'B-eared little pages,* I had done myself the honour 
to have wailed on you long ago. Independent of the 
obligations your hospitality has laid me under ; the 
consciousness of your superiority in the rank of man 
and gentleman, of itself was fully as much as I could ev- 
er make head against ; but to owe you money too, was 
more than I could face. 

1 think I once mentioned something of a collection of 
Scots songs 1 have some years been making : I send 
you a perusal of what I have got together. 1 could not 
conveniently spare them above five or six days, and five 
or six glances of them will probably more than suffice 
you. A very few of them are my own. When you are 
tired of tbem, please leave them with Mr. Clint, of the 
King's Arms. There is not another copy of the collec- 
tion in the world ; and 1 should be sorry that any unfor- 
tunate negligence should deprive me of what has cost 
me a good deal of pains. 



1 



No. CXL. 



■ at the Dum- 



TO MRS. R"* 

Who was to besp ak a Pl:y one < 
fries Theatre. 



I am thinking to send my Address to some periodical 
publication, but it has not got your sanction, so pray 
look over it. 

As to the Tuesday's play, let me beg of you, my dear 
Madam, to give us, The Wonder, a Woman keeps a 
Secret .' to which pbase add, The Spoilt Child— you 
will highly oblige me by so doing. 

Ah! what an enviable creature you are I There 
now, this cursed gloomy blue-devil day, you are going 
to a party of choice spirits— 

" To play the shape3 , 

Of frolic fancy, and incessant form, 
Those rapid pictures, that assembled train 

• Scottish Bank Notes. 



116 



LETTERS. 



Of fleet ideas, never join'd before, 
Where lively wit excites to gay surprise ; 
Or folly-painting humour, grave himself, 
Calls laughter forth, deep-shaking every nerve." 

But as you rejoice with them that do rejoice, do al- 
io remember to weep with them that weep, and pity 
your melancholy friend. 



No. CXLI. 

To a Lady, in favour of a Player's Benefit. 

MADAM, 

You were so very good as to promise me to honour 
my friend with your presence on his benefit night. 
That night is fixed for Friday first I the play a moat 
Interesting one ! The Way to keep him. I have the 
pleasure to know Mr. G. well. His merit as an actor 
ia generally acknowledged. He has genius and worth 
which would do honour to patronage ; he is a poor and 
modest man: claims which from their very silence 
have the more forcible power on the generous heart. 
Alas, for pity ! that from the indolence of those who 
have the good things of this life in their gift, too often 
does brazen-fronted importunity snatch that boon, the 
rightful due of retiring, humble want ! Of all the 
qualities we assign to the author and director of Na- 
ture, by far the most enviable is — to be able " to wipe 
away all tears from all eyes." O what insignificant, 
sordid wretches are they, however chance may have 
loaded them with wealth", who goto their graves, to 
their magnificent mausoleums, with hardly the con- 
iciousness of having made one poor honest heart hap 

py! 

But I crave your pardon, Madam, I came to beg. 
not to preach. 



No. CXLII. 

EXTRACT OF A LETTER 
TO MR. . 



1794. 
I am extremely obliged to you for vour kind mention 
of my interests, in a letter which Mr. S*'* showed 
me. At present, my situation in life must be In a great 
measure stationary, at least for two or three years. 
The statement is this— I am on the supervisors' list ; 
and as we come on there by precedency, in two or 
three years I shall be at the head of that list, and be 
appointed of course— then, a Friend might be of ser- 
vice to me in getting me into a place of the kingdom 
which I would like. A supervisor's income varies 
from about a hundred and twenty to two hundred a- 
year ; but the business is an incessant drudsery, and 
would be nearly a complete bar 10 every species of lit- 
erary pursuit. The moment I am appointed super- 
visor in the common routine, I may be nominated on 
the Collector's list ; and this is always a business pure- 
ly of political patronage. A collectorship varies much 
from better than two hundred a-year to near a thou- 
sand. They also come forward by precedency on (he 
list, and have, besides a handsome income, a life of 
complete leisure. A life of literary leisure, with a de- 
cent competence, is the summit of my wishes. It would 
be the prudish affectation of silly pride in me, to say 
that I do not need, or would not be indebted to It po- 
litical friend ; at the same time, Sir, I by no means lay 
my affairs before you thus, to hook my dependent situ- 
ation on your benevolence. If, in my progress in 
life, an opening should occur where the good offices of 
a gentleman of your public character and political 
consequence might bring me forward, I will petition 
your goodness with the same frankness and sincerity 
as I now do myself the honour to subscribe myself, &c. 



No. CXLIII. 

TO MRS. R«««". 

DEAR MADAM, 

1 meant to have called on you yesternight ; but as I 
edged up to your box-door, the first object which greet- 
ed my view was one of those lobster-coated pup- 
pies sitting like anotherdragon,guardingtheHesperian 
fruit. .On the conditions and capitulations you so 
obligingly offer. 1 shall certainly make my weather 
beaten rustic phiz a part of your boxfurnilpre ou 
Tuesday, when we may arrange the business of the 
visit. 



Among the profusion of idle compliments, which 
insidious craft, or unmeaning folly, incessantly offer 
to your shrine— a shrine, how far exalted above such 
adororatiori— permit me, were it but for rarity's sake, 
to pay you the honest tributeof a warm heart and an in- 
dependent mind ; and to assure you that I am, thou 
most amiable and most accomplished of thy sex, 
with the most respectful esteem, and fervent regard, 
thine, &c. 



No. CXL1V. 



TO THE SAME. 

1 will wait on you my ever-valued friend, buf wheth- 
er in the morning I am not sure. Sunday closes a pe- 
riod of our cursed revenue business, and may probably 
keep me employed with my pen until noon. Fine em- 
ployment for a poet's pen I There is a species of the 
human genius that I call the gin-horse class: what 
enviable dogs they are! Round, and round, and round 
they go — Muudell's ox, that drives his cotton-mill, is 
their exact prototype— without an idea or wish be- 
yond their circle ; fat, sleek, stupid, patient, quiet, and 
coniented ; while here 1 sit, altogether Novemberish, 

a d melange of fretfulness and melancholy ; not 

enough of the one to rouse me to passion, nor of the 
other to repose me in torpor ; my soul flouncing and 
buttering round her tenement, like a wild finch cau ;ht 
amid the horrors of winter, and newly thrust iniJ a 
gage. Well, I am persuaded that it was of me the 
Hebrew sage prophesied, when he foretold — " And be- 
hold on whatsoever this man doth set his heart, it shall 
not prosptr!" If my resentment is awakened, it is 
sure to be where it dare not squeak ; and if— 



Pray that wisdom and bliss be more frequent visitors 



No. CXLV. 



TO THE SAME. 

I have this moment got the song from S***, and 
1 am sorry to see that he has spoilt it a good deal. 
It shall be a lesson to me how I lend him any thing 
again. 

I have sent you Wtrler, truly happy to ha*e any, the 
smallest opportunity of obliging you. 

'Tis true, Madam, I saw you once since I was at 

W ; and that once froze the very life-blood of my 

heart. Your reception of me was such, that a wre'eh 
meeting the eye of his judge, about to pronounce the 
sentence of death on him, could only have envied my 
feelings and situation. But 1 hate the theme, and nev- 
er more shall write or speak on it. 



LETTERS. 



117 



One thing I shall proudly say, that I can pay Mrs. 
•-—a higher tribute of esteem, and appreciate her 
amiable worth more truly, than any man whom 1 have 
Men approach her. 



No. CXLVI. 

TO THE SAME. 

I have often told you, my dear friend, that you had 
a spice of caprice in your composition, and you have as 
often disavowed it: even, perhaps, while your opinions 
were, at the moment, irrefragably proving it. Could 
any thing estrange me from a friend such as you ? — 
No ! To-morrow I shall have the honour of waiting on 
you. 

Farewell thou first of friends, and most accomplish- 
ed of women : even with all thy little caprices. 



No. CXLVII. 

TO THE SAME. 

MADAM, 

I return your common-place book ; I have perused it 
with much pleasure, and would have continued my cri- 
ticisms ; but as it seems the critic has forfeited your 
esteem, his strictures must lose their value. 

If it is true that " offences come only from the 
heart," before you I am guiltless. To admire, esteem, 
and prize you, as the most accomplished of women, and 
the first of friends — if these are crimes, I am the most 
offending thing alive. 

In a face where I used to meet the kind complacency 
of friendly confidence, now to find cold neglect and con- 
temptuous scorn — is a wrench that my heart can ill 
bear. It is, however, some kind of miserable good 
luck, that while de haut-en-bas rigour may depress an 
unoffending wretch to the ground, it has a tendency to 
rouse a stubborn something in his bosom, which, though 
It cannot heal the wounds of his soul, is at least an opi- 
ate to blur their poignancy. 

With the profoundest respect for your abilities ; the 
most sincere esteem and ardent regard for your gentle 
heart and amiable manners ; and the most fervent wish 
and prayer for your welfare, peace, and bliss, 1 have 
the honour to be, Madam, your most devoted, humble 
•ervaut. 



No. CXLVIII. 

TO JOHN SYME, ESQ,. 

You know that, among other high dignities, you have 
the honour to be my supreme court of critical judica- 
ture, from which there is no appeal, i enclose you a 
song which I composed since 1 saw you, and I am going 
to give you the history of it. Do you know, that among 
much that I admire in the characters and manners of 
those great folks whom I have now the honour to call 
my acquaintances, the O""' family, there is nothing 
charms me more than Mr. O's. unconctalable attach- 
ment to that incomparable woman. Did you ever, my 
dear Syme, meet with a man who owed more to the 
Divine Giver of all good things than Mr. O. A fine 
fortune, a pleasing exterior, self evident amiable dis- 
positions, and an ingenuous upright mind, and that 
informed too, much'beyood the usual run of young fel- 
lows of his rank and fortune : and to all this, such a 
woman ! — but ol her 1 shall say nothing at all, in des- 
pair o saying any thingadequate. In my song, 1 have 
endeavoured to do justice to what would be his feel- ! 
ISIgs, on seeing, iu the scene 1 have drawn, the habita- 



tion of his Lucy. As I am a good deal pleased with my 
performance, I in my first fervour, thought of sending 

it to Mrs. O ; but on second thoughts, perhape 

what I offer as the honest incense of genuine respect, 
might, from the well known character of poverty and 
poetry, be construed into some modification or other of 
that servility which my soul abhors.* 



No. CXLIX. 

TO MISS 

MADAM, 

Nothing short of a kind of absolute necessity could 
have made me trouble you with this letter. Except my 
ardent and just esteem for your sense, taste, and worth, 
every sentiment arising in your breast, as I put pen to 
paper to you, is painful. The scenes I have passed 
with the friend of my soul and his amiable connex- 
ions ! the wrench at my heart to think that he is gone, 
for ever gone from me, never more to meet in the wan- 
derings of a weary world ! and the cutting reflection of 
all that 1 had most unlortunalelv, though most unde- 
servedly, lost the confidence of that soul of worth, ere 
it took its flight ! 

These, Madam, are sensations of no ordinary an- 
guish.— However, you also may be offended with some 
imputed improprieties of mine ; sensibility you know I 
possess, and sincerity none will deny me. 

To oppose those prejudices which have been raised 
against me, i3 not the business of this letter. Indeed 
it is a warfare I know not how to wage. The powers 
of positive vice I can in some degree calculate, and 
against direct malevolence 1 can be on my guard ; 
but who can estimate the fatuity of giddy caprice, 
or ward off the unthinking mischief of precipitate 
folly? 

I have a favour to request of you, Madam ; and of 
your sister Mrs. — , through your means. You know 
that, at the wish of my late friend, 1 made a collection 
of all my trifles in verse which I had ever written. 
There are many of them local, some of them puerile 
and all of them, unfit for the public eye. As I have 
some little fame at stake, a fame that I trust may live 
when the hate of those " who watch for my halting," 
and the contumelious sneer of those whom accident 
has made my superiors, will, with themselves, begone 
to the regions of oblivion ; I am uneasy now for the 

fate of those manuscripts. VVill Mrs. have the 

goodness to destroy them, or return them to me ? Aa 
a pledge of friendship they were bestowed ; and that 
circumstance indeed was all their merit. Most un- 
happily for me, that merit they no longer possess ; 

and I hope that Mrs. 's goodness, which I well 

know, and ever will revere, will not refuse this favour 
to a man whom she once held in some degree of esti- 



With the sincerest esteem, I have the honour to be, 
Madam, &c. 



No. CL. 

TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

Q5th FeAr wiry, 1794 
Canst thou minister to a mind diseased ? Canst 
thou speak peace and rest to a soul tossed on a sea ot 
troubles, without one friendly star to guide her course, 
and dreading that the next surge may overwhelm her ? 
Canst thou give to a frame, tremblingly alive as the 

* The song enclosed was that, given in Poems, page; 
112, beginning, 

O, wat ye wha's in yon tovm7 



118 



LETTERS. 



torture* of suspense, the stability and hardihood of 
the rock that braves the blast ? If thou canal not do 
the least of these, why wouldst thou disturb me in my 
miseries with thy inquiries afier me? 



For these two months, I have not been able to lift a 
pen. My constitution and frame were ab origine, 
blasted with a deep incurable taint of hypochondria, 
which poisons my existence. Of late, a number of do- 
mestic vexations, and some pecuniary share in the ru- 
in of these * * * " * times ; losses which, though tri- 
fling, were yet what I could ill bear, have so irritated 
me, that my feelings at times could only be envied by a 
reprobate spirit listening to the sentence that dooms 
it to perdition. 

Are you deep in the language of consolation? I have 
exhausted in reflection every topic of comfort. A heart 
at ease would have been charmed with my sentiments 
and reasonings ; but as to myself, I was like Judas Is- 
cariot preaching the Gospel : he might melt and mould 
the hearts of those around him, but his own kept its 
native incorrigibility. 

Still there are two great pillars that bear us up, 
amid the wreck of misfortune and misery. The one 
is composed of the different modifications of a certain 
noble, stubborn something in man, known by the names 
of courage, fortitude, magnanimity. Thzother is made 
up of those feelings and sentiments, which, however 
the sceptic may deny them, or the enthusiast disfigure 
them, are yet, I am convinced, original and component 
parts of the human soul : those senses of the mind, if 
I may be allowed the expression, which connect us 
with, and link us to, those awful obscure realities — an 
all-powerful, and equally beneficent God ; and a world 
to come, beyond death and the grave. The first gives 
the nerve of combat, while a ray of hope beams on the 
field : — the last pours the balm of comfort into the 
wounds which time can never cure. 

I do not remember, my dear Cunningham, that you 
and 1 ever talked on the subject of religion at all. I 
know some who laugh at it, as the trick of the crafty 
iew, to lead the undiscerning many ; or at most as an 
uncertain obscurity, which mankind can never know 
any thing of, and with which they are fools if they give 
themselves much to do. Nor would I quarrel with a 
man for his irreligion any more than 1 would for his 
want of a musical ear. 1 would regret that he was 
•hut out from what, to me and to others, were such 
superlative sources of enjoyment. It is in this point of 
view, and for this reason, that I will deeply imbue the 
mind of eyery child of mine with religion. If my son 
should happen to be a man of feeling, sentiment, and 
taste, I shall thus add largely to his enjoyments. Let 
me flatter myself that this sweet little fellow, who is 
just now running about my desk, will be a man of a 
melting', ardent, glowing heart ; and an imagination, 
delighted with the painter, and rapt with the poet. 
Let me figure him wandering out in a sweet evening, 
to inhale the balmy gales, and enjoy the growing luxu- 
riance of the spring ! himself the while in the blooming 
youth of life. He looks abroad on all nature, and 
through nature up to nature's God. His soul, by swift 
delighting degrees, is rapt above this sublunary sphere, 
until he can be silent no longer, and bursts out inn the 
glorious enthusiasm of Thomson, 

" These as they change, Almighty Father, these 
Are but the varied God. — The roiling year 
Is full of thee." 

And so on in all the spirit and ardour of that charm- 
ing hymn. 

These are no ideal pleasures ; they are real delights : 
and I ask what of the delights among the sous of men 
are superior, not to say equal, to them? And they 
have this precious, vast additiou, that conscious virtue 
stamps them for her own ; and lays hold on Ihein to 
bring herself into the presence of a witnessing, judg- 
ing, ami approving God. 



No. CLI. 

TO MRS. R*'*«. 

Supposes himself to be writing from the Dead to A* 

Living. 
MADAM, 

I dare say this is the first epistle you ever received 
from this netherworld. I write you from the region* 
of Hell, amid the horrors of the damned. The time 
and manner of my leaving your earth I do not exactly 
know, as 1 took my departure in the heat of a fever of 
intoxication, contracted at your too hospitable man 
sion ; but, on my arrival here, 1 was fairly tried and 
sentenced to endure the purgatorial tortures of this in 
fernal confine for the space of ninety-nine years, elev- 
en months, and twenty-nine days, and all on account 
of the impropriety of my conduct yesternight under 
your roof. Here am I, laid on a bed, of pitiless furze, 
with my aching head reclined on a pillow of ever- 
piercing thorn ; while au infernal tormentor, wrinkled, 
and old, and cruel, his name I think is Recollection, 
with a whip of scorpions, forbids peace or rest to ap- 
proach me, and keeps anguish eternally awake. Still, 
Madam, if I could in any measure be reinstated in the 
good opinion of the fair circle whom my conduct last 
night so much injured, I think it would be an allevia- 
tion to my torments. For this reason I trouble you 
with this letter. To the men of the company I will 
make no apology. Your husband, who insisted on my 
drinking more than I chose, has no right to blame me ; 
and the other gentlemen were partakers of my gudt. 
But to you, Madam, I have much to apologize. Your 
good opinion 1 valued as one of the greatest acquisi- 
tions I had made on earth, and 1 was truly a beast to 
forfeit it. There was a Miss I , too, a woman of 

fine sense, gentle and unassuming manners— do make, 

on my part, a miserable d d wretch's best apology 

to her. A Mrs. G , a charming woman, did ma 

the honour to be prejudiced in my favour : — this makes 
me hope that I have not outraged her beyond all for- 
giveness. To all the other ladies please present my 
humblest contrition for my conduct, and my petition 
for their gracious pardon. O, all ye powers of decen- 
cy and decorum! whisper to them, that my errors, 
though great, were involuntary — that an intoxicated 
man is the vilest of beasts ; that it was not my nature 
to be brutal to any one ; that to be rude to a woman, 
when in my senses, was impossible with me--but-- 



Regret ! Remorse ! Shame ! ye three hell-hounds that 
ever dog my steps and bay at my heels, spare met 
spare me ! 

Forgive the offences, and pity the perdition of, 
Madam, 

Your humble 3lave. 



No. CLII. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

5th December, 1785. 
MY DEAR FRIEND, 

As I am in a complete Decemberish humour, g'.oomv, 
sullen, stupid, as even the deity of Dulness herself 
could wish, 1 shall not drawl out a heavy letter with a 
number of heavier apologies for my late silence. Only 
one 1 shall mention, because 1 know you will sympa- 
thize in it : these four mouths, a sweet little girl, my 



or less, threatened to terminate her existence. There 
had much need be many pleasures annexed to the states 
of husband and father, for God knows, they have many 
peculiar cares. I cannot describe to you the anxious, 
sleepless hours, these ties frequently give me. 1 see a 
train of helpless little folks ; me and my exertions all 
their slay ; aud on what a brittle thread does the life of 



LETTERS. 



119 



man hang 1 If I am nipt off at the command nf Fate, 
even in all the vigourof manhood as I am — such things 
happen every day — gracious God ! what would become 
of my little flock I 'Tie here that 1 envy your people of 
fortune ! A father on his death-bed, taking an ever- 
lasting leave of his children, has indeed wo enough; 
but the man of competent fortune leaves his sons and 
daughters independency and friends; while 1 — but 
I shall run distracted if I think any longer on the sub- 
ject ! 

To leave talking of the matter so gravely, I shall sing 
with the old Scots ballad— 

" O that I had ne'er been married 

1 would never had nae care : 
Now I've gotten wife and bairns, 

They cry crowdie! evermair. 



Crowdie ! ance ! crowdie twice ; 

Crowdie ! three times in a day : 
An ye crowdie ony mair, 

Yfi'll crowdie a' my meal away. 



December 2ilh. 
We have had a brilliant theatre here this season ; 
only, as all other business has, it experiences a stagna- 
tion of trade from the epidemical complaint of the 
country, want of cash. I mention our theatre mere- 
ly to lug in an occasional Address which I wrote for 
the benefit night of one of the actresses, and which is as 
follows :* , 

257ft, Christmas Morning. 
This my much-loved friend is a morning of wishes ; 
accept mine — so heaven hear me as they are sincere ! 
that blessings may attend your steps, and affliction 
know yon not ! in the charming words of my favourite 
anthor, The Man of Feeling, " May the Great Spirit 
bear up the weight of thy gray hairs, and blunt the ar- 
row that brings them rest !" 

Now that I talk of authors, how do you like Cow- 
per ? Is not the Task a glorious poem? The reli- 
gion of the Task, bating a few scraps of Calvinistic di- 
vinity ,isthe religion of God and Nature: the religion that 
exalts, that ennobles man. Were not you to send me your 
Zeluco, in return for mine ? Tell me how you like my 
marks and notes through the book. I would not give a 
farthing for a book, unless I were at liberty to blot it 
with my criticisms. 

I have lately collected, for a friend's perusal, all my 
letters. I mean those which 1 first sketched in a rough 
draught, and afterwards wrote out fair. On looking 
over some old musty papers, which, from time to time, 
I had parcelled by, as trash that were scarce worth 
preserving, and which yet at the same time I did not 
care to destroy; I discovered many of these rude 
sketches, and have written them out, in a bound MSS. 
for my friend's library. As I wrote always to you the 
rhapsody of the moment, I cannot find a single scroll to 
you, except one, about the commencement of our ac- 
ouaintance. If there were any possible conveyance, I 
would send you a perusal of my book. 



No. CLIII. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP, IN LONDON. 

Dumfries, 20th December, 1795. 
I have been prodigiously disappointed in this London 
foarneyof yours. In the first place, when your last to 
me reached Dumfries, I was in the country, and did 

• The Address is given in p. 153, of the Poems. 



not return until too late to answer your letter ; in the 
next place, 1 thought you would certainly take this 
route ; and now I know not what is become of you at 
all. God grant that it may find you and yours in pros- 
pering health and good spirits 1 Do let me hear from 
you the soonest possible. 

As I hope to get a frank from my friend Captain Mil- 
ler, 1 shall every leisure hour, take up the pun, and 
gosaip away whatever comes first, prose or poesy, ser- 
mon or song. In this last article I have abandoned of 
late. I have often mentioned to you a superb publica- 
tion of Scottish songs which is making its appearance 
in your great melrepolis, and where I have the honour 
to preside over the Scottish verse as no less a person- 
age than l'eter Pindar does over the English. 1 wrote 
the following for a favourite air. See the Song enti- 
tled, Lord Gregory, Poems, p. 86, 

December 29rA. 
Since I began this letter, I have been appointed to 
act in the capacity of supervisor here : ami I assure 
you, what with the load of business, and what with 
that business being new to me, I could scaicely have 
commanded ten minutes to have spoken to you, had 
you been in town, much less to have written you an 
epistle. This appointment is only temporary, and 
during the illness of the present incumbent ; but 1 
look forward to an early period when 1 shall be ap- 
pointed in full form ; a consummation devoutly to 
be wished ! My political sin3 seem to be forgiven me. 



This is the season (New-year's day is now my date) 
of wishing ; and mine are most fervently offered up for 
you ! May life to you be a positive blessing while it 
lasts for your own sake ; and that it may yet be great' 
ly prolonged, is my wish for my own sake, and for the 
sake of the rest of your friends 1 What a transient 
business is life ! Very lately 1 was a boy ; but t'other 
day 1 was a young man ; and I already begin to feei 
the rigid fibre and stiffening joints of old age coming 
fast o'er my frame. With all my follies of youth, and, 
I fear, a few vices of manhood, still I congratulate my- 
self on having had, in early days, religion strongly im- 
pressed on my mind. 1 have nothing to say to any one 
as to which sect he belongs to, or what creed he be- 
lieves ; but I look on the man, who is firmly persuaded 
of infinite Wisdom and Goodness superintending and 
directing every circumstance that can happen in his 
lot — 1 felicitate such a man as having a solid founda- 
tion for his mental enjoyment ; a firm prop and sure 
stay in the hour of difficulty, troublj, and distress ; 
and a never-falling anchor of hope, when he looks be- 
yond the grave. 

January \2th. 

You will have seen our worthy and ingenious friend 
the Doctor, long ere this. 1 hope he is well, and beg 
to be remembered to him. I have just been reading 
over again, I dare say for the hundred and fiftieth time, 
his View of Society and Manners ; and still I read it 
with delight. His humour is perfectly original— it is 
neither the humour of Addison, nor Swift, nor Sterne, 
nor of any body but Dr. Moore. Bytheby, you have 
deprived me of Zeluco ; remember that, when you are 
disposed to rake up the sins of my neglect from among 
the ashes of my laziness. 

He has paid me a pretty compliment, by quoting 
in his last publication.* 



No. CLIV. 

TO MRS. R*«**. 

20th January, 1796. 
1 cannot express my gratitude to you for allowing 
me a longer perusal of Anacharsis. In fact I never 

* Edward. 



120 



LETTERS. 



met with a boo* that bewitched me so much ; and I, as 
a member of the library, must warmly feel the obliga- 
tion you have laid us under. Indeed to me, the obliga- 
tion is stronger than to any other individual of our so- 
ciety ; as Anacharsis is an indispensable desideratum 
to a son of the Muses. 

The health you wished me in your morning's card, 
is I think, flown from me for ever. 1 have not been 
able to leave my bed to day till about an hour ago. — 
These wickedly unlucky advertisements 1 lent (I did 
wrong) to a friend, and I am ill able to go in quest 
of him. 

The Muses have not quite forsaken me. The fol- 
lowing detached stanzas I intend to interweave in 
some disastrous tale of a shepherd. 



No. CLV. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

31st January, 1796. 
These many months you have been two packets in 
my debt— what sin of ignorance 1 have committed 
against so highly valued a friend I am utterly at a loss 
to guess. Alas ! Madam ! ill can I afford, at this 
time, to be deprived of any of the small remnant of my 
pleasures. I have lately drunk deep of the cup of af- 
fliction. The autumn robbed me of my only daughter 
and darling child, and that at a distance too, and so 
rapidly, as to put it out of my power to pay the last du- 
ties to' her. I had scarcely begun to recover from that 
shock, when I became myself the victim of a most se- 
vere rheumatic fever, and long the die spun doubtful ; 
until, after many weeks of a sick bed, it seems to 
have turned up life, and 1 am beginning to crawl across 
my room, and once indeed have been before my own 
door in the street. 

When pleasure fascinates the mental sight, 

Affliction purifies the visual ray, 
Religion hails the drear, the untried night, 

And shuts, for ever shuts, life's doubtful day ! 



No. CLVI. 

TO MRS. R**** 
Who had desired him to go to the Birth-Day Assem- 
bly on that day to show his loyalty. 

ilhJune,n%. 
am in such miserable health as to be utterly inca- 
pable of showing my loyalty in any way. Racked as I 
am with rheumatisms, 1 meet every face with a greet- 
ing, like that of Balak to Balaam—" Come, curse me 
Jacob ; and come, defy me Israel !" So say I — come, 
curse me that east wind : and come, defy me the 
north ! Would you have me in such circumstances, 
copy you out a love song ? 



I mav, perhaps, see you on Saturday, but I will not 
be at the ball. Why should I I " Man delights not 
me, nor woman either?" Can you supply me with 
the song, Let us all be unhappy together— -do if you 
can, and oblige le vauvre miserable. 

R. B. 



No. CLVII. 

TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. 
Brow, Sea-bathing Quarters, 1th July, 1796. 
MY DEAR CUNNINGHAM, 

I received yours here this moment, and am indeed 
highly flattered wi.-.h the approbation of the literary 
circle you mention ; a literary circle inferior to none 
in the two kingdoms. Alas ! my friend, I fear the 
roice of the bard will soon be heard among you no 



more ? For these eight or ten months I have beer 
ailing, sometimes bedfast, and sometimes not ; but 
these last three months, I have been tortured with an 
excruciating rheumatism, which has reduced me to 
nearly the last stage. You actually would not know 
meifyousaw me. Pale, emaciated, and so feeble as 
occasionally to need help from my chair! my spirits 
fled ! fled ! — but I can no more on the subject— only 
the medical folks tell me that my last and only chance 
is bathing, and country quarters, and riding. — The 
deuce of the matter is this ; when an exciseman is off 
duty, his salary is reduced to 35/. instead of 50/. — 
What way, in the name of thrift, shall I maintain my- 
self, and keep a horse in country quarters— with a wife 
and five children at home, on 35/.? 1 mention this, 
because I had intended to beg your utmost interest, 
and that of all the friends you can muster, to move 
our Commissioners of Excise to grant me the full sala- 
ry — I dare say you know them all personally. If they 
do not grant it me, I must lay my account with an exit 
truly enpoete, if I die not of disease, I must perish 
with hunger. 

I have sent you one of the songs ; the other my 
memory does not serve me with; and I have no copy 
here ; but I shall be at home soon, when I willsendit 
to you. A-propos to being at home, Mrs. Burns 
threatens in a week or two to add one more to my pa- 
ternal charge, which, if of the right gender, I intend 
shall be introduced to the world by the respectable de- 
signation of Alexander Cimnir.gham Burns. My last 
was James Glencairn, so you can have no objection to 
the company of nobility. Farewell ! 



No. CLVIII. 

TO MRS. BURNS. 

Brow, Thursday. 
MY DEAREST LOVE, 

I delayed writing until I could tell you what effect 
sea-bathing was likely to produce. It would be injus- 
tice to deny that it ha? eased my pains, and I think, 
has strengthened me ; but my appetite is still extreme- 
ly bad. No flesh nor fish can I swallow ; porridge and 
milk are the only thing I can taste. I am very happy 
to hear, by Miss Jess Lewars, that you are all well. 
My very best and kindest compliments to her, and to 
all the children. I will see you on Sunday. Your af- 
fectionate husband. R. B. 



No. CLIX. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

Brow, 12th July, 1796. 
MADAM, 

I have written you so often without receiving any 
answer, that I would not trouble you again, but for 
the circumstances in which I am. An illness which 
has long hung about me, in all probability will speedily 
send me bevond that bourne whence no traveller re- 
turns. Your friendship, with which for many years 
you honoured me, was a friendship dearest to my soul. 
Your conversation, and especially your correspond- 
ence, were at once highly entertaining and instruc- 
tive. With what pleasure did 1 use to break up the 
seal I The remembrr.nce yet adds one pulse more to 
my poor palpitating heart. Farewell!!!* R. B. • 

* The above is supposed to be the last production of 
Robert Burns, who died on the 21st of the month, nine 
days afterwards. He had, however, the pleasure of 
receiving a satisfactory explanation of bis friend's si- 
lence, and an assurance of the continuance of her 
friendship to his widow and children ; an assurance 
that has been amply fulfilled. 

It is probable that the greater part of her letters to 
him were destroyed by our Bard about the time that 
this last was written. He did not foresee that his own 
letters to her were to appear in print, nor conceive the 
disappointment that will be felt, that a few of this ex- 
cellent lady's have not served to enrich and adorn the 
collection. E. 



CORRESPONDENCE 



MR. GEORGE THOMSON. 



PREFACE. 



THE remaining part cf this Volume, consists pnn- 
sipally of the Correspondence between Mr. Burns 
tad Mr. Thomson, on the subject of the beautiful 
Work projected and executed by the latter, the na- 
ture of which is explained in the first number of the 
following series.* The undertaking of Mr. Thomson, 
is one in which the Public may be congratulated in 
various points of view ; not merely as having collected 
the finest of the Scottish songs and ah-3 of past times, 
but as having given occasion to a number of original 
songs of our Bard, which equal or surpass the former 
efforts of the pastoral muses of Scotland, and which, 
if we mistake not, may be safely compared with the 
lyric poetry of any age or country. The letters of 
Mr. Burns to Mr. Thomson include the songs he pre- 
sented to him, some of which appear in different 
stages of their progress ; and these letters will be found 
to exhibit occasionally his notions of song-writing, and 
his opinions on various subjects of taste and criticism. 
These opinions, it will lie observed, were called forth 
by the observations of his correspondent, Mr. Thom- 
son ; and without the letters of this gentleman, those 
of Burns would have often been unintelligible. He has 
therefore yielded to the earnest request of the Trus- 
tees of the' family of the poet, to suffer them to appear 
in their natural order; and, independently of the 
illustration they give to the letters of our Bard, it is 
not to be doubted that their intrinsic merit will ensure 
them a reception from the public, far beyond what 
Mr. Thomson's modesty would permit him to suppose. 
The whole of this correspondence was arranged for 
tbe press by Mr. Thomson, and has been printed with 
little addition or variation. 

To avoid increasing tue bulk of the work unneces- 
larily, we have in general referred the reader for the 
Song to the page in the Poems where it occurs : and 
have given the verses entire, only when they differ in 
some respects from the adopted set. 

* This work is entitled. " A Select Collection of 
original Scottish Airs for the Voice : to which are 
added Introductory and Concluding Symphonies and 
Accompaniments for the Piano Forte and Violin by 
Pleyel and Kozeluch : with select and characteristic 
Verees, by the most admired Scottish Poets, &c." 



si 17, 



No. I. 

MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 



Edinburgh, September, 1792. 



For some years past, I have, with a friend or two, 
employed many leisure hours in selecting and collating 
the most favourite of our national melodies for publi 
cation. We have engaged Pleyel, the most agreeabl 
composer living, to put accompaniments to these, an i 
also to compose an instrumental prelude and conch) 
sion to each air, the better to fit them for concerts 
both public and private. To render this work per 
feet, we are desirous to have the poetry improved 
wherever it seems unworthy of the music, and that i' 
is so in many instances, is allowed by every one con. 
versant with our musical collections. The editors o ; 
these seem in general to have depended on the music 
proving an excuse for the verses : and hence, soma 
charming melodies are united to mere nonsense and 
doggerel, while others are accommodated with rhymes 
so loose and indelicate, as cannot be sung in decent 
company. To remove this reproach would be an easy 
task to the author of The Colter's Saturday NiglU; 
and, for the honour of Caledonia, I would fain hope 
he may be induced to take up the pen. If so, we 
shall be enabled to present the public with a col- 
lection infinitely more interesting than any that has 
yet appeared, and acceptable to all persons of taste, 
whether they wish for correct melodies, delicate ac- 
companiments, or characteristic verses. — We will 
esteem your poetical assistance a particular favour, 
besides paying any reasonable price you shall please 
to demand for it. Profit is quite a secondary consi- 
deration with us, and we are resolved to spare neither 
pains nor expense on the publication. Tell me frank- 
ly, then, whether you will devote your leisure to 
writing twenty or twenty-five songs, suited to the par- 
ticular melodies which I am prepared to send you. 
A few songs, exceptionable only in some of their verses, 
I will likewise submit to your consideration ; leaving 
it to you, either to mend these, or to make new songs 
in their stead. It is superfluous to assure you that I 
have no intention to displace any of the sterling old 



N 



122 



LETTER 



songs ; those only will be removed, which appear quite 
silij, or absolutely indecent. Even these shall all be 
examined by Mr. B'irns, and if he is of opinion that 
any of them are deserving of the music, in such cases 
no divorce shall take place. 

Relying on the letter accompanying this, to be for- 
given for the liberty 1 have taken iii addressing you, I 
am, with great esteem, Sir, yoar most obedient hum- 
ble servant, 

G. THOMSON. 



• 



MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

Dumfries, XGth September, 1792. 
SIR, 

I have just this moment got your letter. As the 
jrequest you make me will positively add to my enjoy- 
fitaents in complying with it, I shall enter into your 
^fcdertaking with all the small portion of abilities 1 
Skye, strained to their utmost exertion by the impulse 
if enthusiasm. Only don't hurry me: " Deil talc the 
Tlindmost," is by no means the cri de guerre of my 
muse. Will you, as 1 am inferior to none of you in 
enthusiastic attachment to the poetry and music of 
JSd Caledonia, and, since you request it, have cheer- 
fully promised my mite of assistance — will you let me 
Aave a list of your airs, with the first line of the 
•printed verses you intend for them, that I may have 
i*n opportunity of suggesting any alteration that may 
feccur to me. You know 'tis in the way of my trade : 
'Btill leaving you, gentlemen, the undoubted right of 
publishers, to approve or reject, at your pleasure, for 
your own publication. Apropos! if you are for 
English verses, there is, on my part, an end of the 
matter. Whether in the simplicity of the ballad, or 
the pathos of the song, I can only hope to please my- 
self in being allowed at least a sprinkling of our native 
tongue. English verses, particularly the works of 
Scotsmen, that have merit, are certainly very eligi- 
ble. Tweedside — Ah, the poor shepherd's m-iutniul 
fate — Ah, Chloris could I?iow but sit, &c. you cannot 
mend ; but such insipid stuff as, T> Fanny fair could 
I impart, &c. usually set to The Mill Mill O, is a dis- 
grace to the collection in which it has already appear- 
ed, and would doubly disgrace a collection that will 
have the very superior merit of yours. But more of 
this in the farther prosecution of the business, if I am 
called on for my strictures and amendments — I say, 
amendments : for I will not alter except where I my- 
self at least think that I mend. 

As to any remuneration, you may think my songs 
either above or below price ;'for they shall absolutely 
be the one or the other. In the honest enthusiasm with 
which 1 embark in your undertaking, to talk of money, 
wages, fee, hire, &c. would be downright prostitution 
of soul 1 A proof of each of the songs that I compose 
or amend, 1 shall receive as a favour. In the rustic 
phrase of the season, " Crude speed the wark !" 
I am, Sir, your very humble servant, 

R. BURNS. 

P. S. I have some particular reasons for wishing 
my interference to be known as little as possible. 



No. III. 

MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 

Edinburgh. 13th October, 1792. 
DEAR SIR, 

I received, with much satisfaction, your pleasant 
and obliging letter, and 1 return my warmest acknow- 
ledgments for the enthusiasm with which you have en- 
tered into our undertaking. We have row no doubt 



of being able to p t,ducc a collection highly deserting 
of public attention iu all respects. 

I agree with you in thinking English verses that 
have merit, very eligible, wherever new verses are 
necessary ; because the Knglish becomes every year 
more and more the language of Scotland ; but if you 
mean that no English versts, except those by Scottisn 
authors, ought to be aimi ted, ! am half inclined to 
dillrr from you. I should consider it unpardonable to 
sacrifice one good song in the Scottish dialect, to make 
room for English verses, but if we can select a few 
excellent ones suited to the unprovided or ill-provided 
airs, would it not be the very bigotry of literary pa- 
triotism to reject such, merely because the authors 
were born south of the Tweed? Our sweet air, My 
Nannie O, which in the collections is joined to the 
poorest stuff that Allan Ramsay ever wrote, begin- 
ning, While some for pleasure pawn their health, an- 
swers so finely to Dr. Percy's beautiful song, O, Nancy 
will thou go with me, that one would think he wrote it 
on purpose for the air. However, it is not at all our 
wish to confine you to English verses ; you shall freely 
be allowed a sprinkling of your native tongue, as you 
elegantly express it : and moreover, we will patiently 
wait your own time. One thing only I beg, which is, 
that however gay and sportive the muse maybe, she 
may always be decent. Let her not write what beau- 
ty would blush to speak, nor wound that charming 
delicacy which forms the most precious dowry of our 
daughters. I do not conceive the song to be the most 
proper vehicle for witty and brilliant conceits; sim- 
plicity, 1 believe should be its prominent feature ; but, 
in some of our songs, the writers have confounded 
simplicity with coarseness and vulgarity ; although 
between the one and the other, as Or. Beattie welt 
observes, there is as great a difference as between a 
plain suit of clothes and a bundle of rags. The hu- 
morous ballad, or pathetic complaint, is best suited to 
our artless melodies ; and more interesting, indeed, in 
all songs, than the most pointed wit, dazzling descrip- 
tions, and flowery fancies. 

With these trite observations, I send you eleven of 
the songs, for which it is my wish to substitute others 
of your writing. 1 shall soon transmit the rest, and, 
at the same time, a prospectus of the whole collection : 
and you may believe we will receive any hints that 
you are so kind as to give for improving the work, 
with the greatest pleasure and thankfulness. 

1 remain, dear Sir, &c. 



MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 
MY DEAR SIR, 

Let me tell you, that you are too fastidious in your 
ideas of songs and ballads. 1 own that your criticisms 
are just ; the songs you specify in your list have all, 
but one, the faults you remark in them ; but who shall 
mend the matter .' Who shall rise up aad say— Go to, 
I will make a better 7 For instance, on reading over 
the Lea-rig, 1 immediately set about trying my hand 
on it, and, after all, 1 could make nothing more of it 
than the following, which Heaven knows is poor 
enough : 

When o'er the hill the eastern star, 

Tells bughtin time is near my jo ; 
And owsen frae the furrow'd field, 

Return sae dowf and weary O ; 
Down by the burn, where scented birka* 

Wi' dew hanging clear, my jo, 
I'll meet thee on the L'a-rig, 

My ain kind dearie O. 

In mirkest glen, at midnight hour, 

I'd rove, and ne'er be eerie O, 
If thro' that glen I gaed to thee, 

My ain kind dearie O. 






J-.LTTERS. 



123 



Ahho' the night were ne'er sae wild,* 

And 1 were ne'er sae wearie 0, 
I'd meet thee on the lea-rig, 
My ain kind dearie 0. 

Your observation as to the aptitude of Dr. Percy's 
ballad to the air Nannie O, is just. It is besides, per- 
hapB the most beautiful ballad in the English language. 
But let me remark to you, that, in the sentiment and 
style of our Scottish airs, there is a pastoral simplicity, 
a something that one may call the Doric style and dia- 
lect of vocal music, to whic.h a dash of our native 
tongue and manners is particularly, nay peculiarly 
apposite. For this reason, and, upon my honour, for 
this reason alone, 1 am of opinion (hut, as 1 told you 
before, my opinion is yours, freely yours, to approve, 
or reject, as you please) that my ballad of Nannie O, 
might perhaps, do for one set of verses to the tune. 
Now don't let it enter into your head, that you are 
under any necessity of taking my verses. I have long 
ago made up my mind as to my own reputation in the 
business of authorship : and have nothing to be pleased 
or offended' at, in your adoption or rejection of my 
verses. Though you should reject one half of what 1 
give yem, 1 shall be pleased with your adopting the 
other half, and shall continue to serve you with the 
same assiduity. 

In the printed copy of my Nannie O, the name of 
the river is horridly prosaic. 1 will alter it, 

" Behind yon hills where Lugar flows." 

Gkvan is the name of the river that suits the idea of 
the stanza best, but Lugar is the most agreeable modu- 
lation of syllables. 

I will soon give you a great many more remarks on 
this business ; but 1 have just now an opportunity of 
conveying you this scrawl, free of postage, an expense 
that it is ill able to pay : so, with my best compliments 
to honest Allan, Good be wi' ye, &c. 

Friday night. 



Saturday morning. 

As I find I have still an hour to spare this morning 
before my conveyance goes away, 1 will give you Nan- 
nie O, at length. See Poems p. 61. 

Your remarks on Ewe-bughts, Marion, are just : 
still it has obtained a place among our more classical 
Scottish Songs and what with many beauties in its 
composition, and more prejudices in its favour, you 
will not find it easy to supplant it. 

In my early years, when 1 was thinking of going to 
the West Indies, I took the following farewell of a 
dear girl. It is quite trifling, and has nothing of the 
merits of Eice-buglus ; but it will fill up this page. 
You must know, that all my earlier love-songs were 

* In the copy transmitted to Mr Thomson, instead 
of wild, was inserted wet. But in one of the manu- 
scripts, probably written afterwards, wet was changed 
into wild ; evidently a great improvement. The lovers 
might meet on the lea-rig, " although the night were 
ne'er so wild," that is, although the summer wind 
blew, the eky lowered, and the thunder murmured ; 
such circumstances might render their meeting still 
more interesting. But if the night were actually wet, 
why Bhould they meet on the Lea-rig ? On a wet night 
the imagination cannot contemplate their situation 
there with any complacency. — Tibullus, and, after him, 
Hammond, has conceived a happier situation for lov- 
ers on a wet night. Brobabiy Burns had in his mind 
the verse of an old Scottish Song, in which wit and 
weary are naturally enough conjoined. 

" When my ploughman comes hame at ev'a 

He's often wet and weary ; 
Cast oft" the wet, put on the dry, 

Aftd gae to bed my deary," i 



the breathings of ardent passion : and though it might 
'have been easy in after-times to have given them a 
polish, yet that polish, to me, whose they were, ana 
who perhaps alone cared for them, would have defaced 
the legend of my heart, which was so faithfully in- 
scribed on them. Their uncouth simplicity was, as 
they say of wines, their race. 

Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, 
And leave auld Scotia's shore ? 

See Poems, p. 84. 

Galla Water, and Auld Rob Mortis, I think, will 
most probably be the next subject of my musings. 
However, even on my verses, speak out your criticisms 
with equal frankness. My wish is not to stand aloof, 
the uncomplying bigot of opiniatrete, but cordially to 
join issue with you in the furtherance of the work. 



No. V. 

MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

November 8 
If you mean, my dear Sir, that all the songs in 
collection shall be poetry of the first merit, 1 am I 
you will find more difficulty in the undertaking 
your are aware of. There is a peculiar rhythmus 
many of our airs, and a necessity of adapting s~ 
bles to the emphasis, or what i would call the fei 
notes of the tune, that cram)) the poet, and lay 
under almost insuperable difficulties. For mstan 
in the air, My wife's a wanton wee thing, if a fev 
lines smooth and pretty can be adapted to it, it is i 
you can expect. '1 he following were made extempora 
to it, and though, on further study, I might give you 
something more profound, yet it might nut suit the 
light-horse gallop of the air so well as this random 
clink. 

MY WIFE'S A WINSOME WEE THING. 

She is a winsome wee thing, 
She is a handsome wee thing. 

See Poems, p. Si. 

I have just been looking over the Collier's bonnie 
Dpckter ; and if the following rhapsody, which I com- 
posed the other day, on a charming Ayrshire girl, 
Miss , as she passed through this place to Eng- 
land, will suit your'taste better than the Collier Las- 
sie, fall on and welcome. 

O saw ye bonnie Lesley 
As she gaed o'er the border ? 

See Poems, p. 84. 

I have hitherto deferred the sublimer, more pathetic 
airs until more leisure, as they will take, and deserve, 
a greater effort. However, they are all put into your 
hands, as clay into the hands of the potter, to make 
one vessel to honour and another to dishonour. Fare 
well, &c. 



MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

Inclosing the Song on Highland Mary 
See Poems, p. 85. 

Uth November, 1792. 
MY DEAR SIR, 

I agree with you that the song, Katherine Ogie, it 
very poor stuff, and unworthy, altogether unworthy, 
of so beautiful an air. 1 tried to mend it, but the 
awkard sound Ogie recurring so often in the rhyme 
spoils every attempt at introducing sentiment into the 



'24 



LETTERS. 



piece. The foregoing song pleases myself; I think it is 
In my happiest manner ; you will see at first glance 
that it suits the air. The subject of the song is one of 
the most interesting passages of my youthful days ; 
and I own that 1 should be much flattered to see the 
verses set to an air, which would ensure celebrity. 
Perhaps, after all, 'tis the still glowing prejudice of my 
heart, that throws a borrowed lustre over the merits 
of the composition. 

I have partly taken your idea of Auld Rob Morris. 
I have adopted the two first verses, and am going on 
with the song on a new plan, which promises pretty 
well. I take up one or another, just as the bee of the 
moment buzzes in my bonnet-lug; and do you, sans 
ceremonie, make what use you choose of the produc- 
tions. Adieu ! &c. 



No. VII. 
MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 

Edinburgh, November, 1792. 
DEAR SIR, 
*i | I was just going to write to you that on meeting 
arith your Nan/rie 1 had fallen violently in love with 
her. I thank you, therefore, for sending the charming 
•rustic to me, in the dress you wish her to appear be- 
fore the public. She does you great credit, and will 
•oon be admitted into the best company. 
I 'I regret that your song for the Lea-rig, is so short ; 
•■ithe air is easy, soon sung, and very pleasing ; so that, 
if the singer stops at the end of two stanzas, it is a 
pleasure lost ere it is well possessed. 
£ Although a dash of our native tongue and manners 
^s doubtless peculiarly congenial and appropriate to 
'.'bur melodies, yet I shall be able to present a consider- 
able number of the very Flowers of English Song, well 
adapted to those melodies, which in England at least 
will be the means of recommending them to still 
greater attention than they have procured there. But 
you will observe, my pla* is, that every air shall, in 
the first place, have verses wholly by Scottish poets : 
and that those of English writers shall follow as addi- 
tional songs, for the choice of the singer. 

What you say of the Ewe-bughts is just ; I admire 
it and never meant to supplant it. All I requested 
was, that you would try your hand on some of the in- 
ferior stanzas, which are apparently no part of the 
original song : but this I do not urge, because the song 
is of sufficient length though those inferior stanzas be 
omitted, as they will be by the singer of taste. You 
must not think 1 expect all the songs to be of superla- 
tive merit; that were an unreasonable expectation. 
I am sensible that no poet can sit down doggedly to 
pen verses, and succeed well at all times. 

I am highly pleased with your humourous and 
amorous rhapsody on Bonnie Leslie ; it is a thousand 
times better than the Collier's Lassie. " The deil he 
could na scaith ihee," &c. is an eccentric-and happy 
thought. Do you not think, however, that the names 
of such old heroes as Alexander, sound rather queer, 
unless in pompous or mere burlesque verse ? Instead of 
the line " And never made another," i would humbly 
suggest, " And ne'er made sic anither;" and I would 
fain have you substitute some other line for " Return 
to Caledonia," in the last verse, because I think this 
alteration of the orthography, and of the sound of 
Caledonia, disfigures the word, and renders it Hudi- 
brastic. 

Of the other song, My wife's a winsome wee thing, 
I think the first eight lines very good, but I do not 
admire the other eight, because four of them are a 
bare repetition of the first verse. I have been trying 
to spin a stanza, but could make nothing better than 
the following : do you mend it, or, as Yorick did with 
the love-letter, whip it up in your own way. 

O leeze me on my wee thing ; 
My bonnie blythsome wee thing; 



Sae lang's I hae my wee thing 
I'll think m." lot divine. 



Tho' warld's care we share o% 
And may see meickle mair o't ; 
Wi' her I'll olithely bear it, 
And ne'er a word lepine. 

You perceive my dear Sir, I avail myself of th« 
liberty which you condescend to allow me, by speaking 
freely what I think. Be assured it is not my disposi- 
tion to pick out the faults ol any poem or pieture 1 
see : my first and chief object is to discover and be 
delighted with the beauties of the piece. If 1 set down 
to examine critically, and at leisure, what perhaps 
you have written in haste, I may happen to observe 
careless lines, the reperusal of which might lead you 
to improve them. The wren will often see what has 
been overlooked by the eagle. I remain yours faith- 
fully, &c. 

P. S. Your verses upon Highland Mary are just 
come to hand : they breathe the genuine spirit of 
poetry, and, like the music, will last for ever. Such 
verses united to such an air, with the delicate harmo- 
ny of 1 leyel superadded, might form a treat worthy 
of being presented to Apollo himself. I have heard 
the sad story of your Mary: ou always seem in- 
spired when you write of her. 



No. VIII. 

MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

Dumfries, 1st December, 1792. 
Your alterations of my Nannie O are perfectly 
right. So are those of My wife's a wanton wee thing. 
Your alteration of the second stanza is a positive im- 
provement. Now, my dear Sir, with the freedom 
which characterizes our correspondence, 1 must not, 
cannot, alter Bonnie Leslie. You are right, the word, 
'• Alexander" makes the line a little uncouth, but I 
think the thought is pretty. Of Alexander, beyond all 
other heroes, it may be said in the sublime language of 
Scripture, that " he went forth conquering and to 
conquer." 

" For Nature made her what she is, 
And never made anither." (Such a person as she is.) 

This is in my opinion more poetical than " Ne'er 
made sic anither." However, it is immaterial ; make 
it either way.* "Caledonia," I agree with you, is 
not so good a word as could be wished, though it is 
sanctioned in three or four instances by Allan Ram- 
say : but I cannot help it. In short, that species of 
stanza is the most difficult that I have ever tried. 

The Lea-rig is as follows. (Here the poet gives the 
two first stanzas, as before, p. 122, with the following 
in addition.) 

The hunter lo'esthe morning sun, 

To rouse the mountain deer, my jo: 
At noon the fisher seeks the glen, 

Along the burn to steer, my jo : 
Gie me the hour o' gloamin gray, 

It makes my heart sae cheery O, 
To meet thee ou the lea-rig, 

My ain kind deary, O. 

I am interrupted. 

Yours, &C. 

No. IX. 

MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMPSON. 

Inclosing Auld Robin Morris, and Duncan Gray.— 

See Poems, p. 85. 

4>.h December, 1792. 
The foregoing (Auld Rob Morris and Duncan 
Gray,) I submit, my dear Sir, to your better judgment. 

* Mr. Thompson has decided on Ne'er made sit 
anither. E 



LETTERS. 



125 



Aoquit them, 01 condemn them as seemeth good in your 
light. Duuean Gray is that kind of light-horse gal- 
lo*> of an air, which precludes seutiment. The ludic- 
rous U its ruling feature. 



MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

H 'ilk Poortith Cauld and Galla Water. 

See Poems, p. 86. 

January, 1793. 
Many returns of the season to you, my dear Sir.-- 
How comes on your publication? will these two fore- 
going be of any service to you ? I should like to know 
what songs you print to each tune besides the verses to 
which it is set. In short, I would wish to give you my 
opinion on all the poetry you publish. You know it is 
my trade, and a man in the way of his trade, may sug- 
gest useful hints, that escape men of much superior 
parts and endowments in e ther tilings. 

If you meet with my dear and much valued C. greet 
him in my name, with the compliments of the season. 
Yours, &c. 



MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 

Edinburgh, January 20, 1793. 
You make me happy, my dear Sir, and thousands 
will be happy to see the charming songs you have sent 
me. Many merry returns uf the season to you, and 
may you long continue, among the sons and daughters 
of Caledonia, to delight them and to honour yourself. 

The four last songs with which you favoured me, viz. 
Auld Rob Morris, Duncan Gray, Galla Water, and 
Cauld Kail, are admirable. Duncan is indeed a lad 
of grase, and his humour will endear him to every 
body. 

The distracted lover in Auld Rob, and the happy 
Shepherdess in Galla Water, exhibit an excellent con 
trast: they speak from genuine feeling, and powerfully 
touch the heart. 

The number of songs which 1 had originally in view 
was limited ; but 1 now resolve to include every Scotch 
air aud song worth singing, leaving none behind but 
mere gleanings, to which the publishers of omnegathe- 
rum are welcome. I would rather be the editor of a 
collection from which nothing could be taken away, 
than of one to which nothing could be added. We in- 
tend presenting the subscribers with two beautiful 
stroke engravings ; the one characteristic of the plain- 
tive, and the other of the lively songs : and 1 have Dr. 
Beattie's promise of an essay upon the subject of our 
national music, if his health will permit him to write it. 
As a number of our songs have doubtless been called 
forth by particular events, or by the charms of peerless 
damsels, there must be many curious anecdotes rela- 
ting to them. 

The late Mr. Tytler, of Woodbouselee, I believe 
knew more of this than any body, for he joined to the 
pursuits of an antiquary a taste fir poetry, besides be- 
ing a man of 'he world, and possessing an enthusiasm 
for music beyond most of his contemporaries, lie was 
quite pleased with this plan of mine, for I may say it 
has been solely managed by me. and we had several 
long conversations about it when it was in embryo. If 
I could simply mention the name of the heroine of each 
song, and the incident which occasioned the verses, it 
would be gratifying. Pray, will you send me any in- 
formation of this sort, as well with regard to your own 
tonga, as the old ones ? 



To all the favourite songs of the plaintive or pastoral 
kind, will be joined the delicate accompaniments. &c, 
of Pleyel. To those of the comic and humorous class, 
1 think accompaniments scarcely necessary ; they are 
chiefly iitted for the conviviality of the festive board, 
and a tuneful voice, with a proper delivery of the 
words, renders them perfect. Nevertheless, to these I 
propose adding bass accompaniments, because then 
they are fitted either for singing, or for instrumental 
performance, when there happens to be no singer. 1 
mean to employ our right trusty friend Mr. Clarke, 
to set the bass to these, which he assures me he will 
do con amore, and with much greater attention than he 
ever bestowed on any thing of the kind. But for this 
last class of airs I will not attempt to find more than 
one set of verses. 

That eccentric bard, Teter Pindar, has started 1 
know not how many difficulties, about writing for the 
airs 1 sent to him, because of the peculiarity of their 
measure, and the trammels they impose on his flyina 
Pegasus. 1 subjoin fur your perusal the only oneljj 
have yet gotfiom him, being for the fine air " L»|^B 
Gregory." The Scots verses printed with that air, are 
taken from the middle of an old ballad, called Tlie 1*0,33 
OJ Lockroyan, which 1 do not admire.' I lni\ e set dowu 
the air therefore as a creditor of yours. .Many of the 
J acobite songs are replete with wit and humour, might 
not the best of these be included in our volume of comic 
songs } 



POSTSCRIPT. 

FROM THE HON. A. ERSKINE. \ 

Mr. Thomson has been so obliging as to give me 'f 
perusal of your songs. Highland Mary is most en*. 
chantingly pathetic, and Duncan Gray possesses native 
genuine humour; " spak o' lowpiu o'er a linn," is a' 
line of itself that should make you immortal. I some- 
times hear of you from our mutual friend C. who is a 
most excellent fellow, and possesses, above all men I 
know, the charm of a most obliging disposition. You 
kindly promised me, about a year ago, a collection of 
your unpublished productions, religious and amorous : 
i know from experience, how irksome it is to copy. If 
you will get any trusty person in D imfries to write 
them over fair, I will give Peter Hill whatever money 
he asks for his trouble, and I certainly shall not betray 
your confidence. I am yourhe?vty admirer, 

ANDREW ERSKINE, 



MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON 

25f7t January, 1793. 
I approve greatly, my dear Sir, of your plans ; Dr. 
Beattie's essay will of itself be a treasure. On my 
part, I mean to draw up an appendix to the Doctor's 
essay, containing my stock of anecdotes, &c. of our 
Scots songs. All the late Mr. Tytler's anecdotes I 
have by me, taken down in the course of my acquaint- 
ance with him from his own mouth. I am such an en- 
thusiast, that, in the course of my several peregrina- 
tions through Scotland. I made a pilgrimage to the 
individual spot from which every song took its rise ; 
Lochaber, aud the Braes of Ballenden, excepted. So 
far as the locality, either from the title of the air, or 
the tenor of the song, could be ascertained, I have 
paid my devotions at the particular shrine of every 
Scots muse. 

I do not doubt but you might make a very valuable 
collection of Jacobite songs ; but would it give no of 
fence? In the mean time, do not you think that some 
of them, particularly The Sow's Tail to Geordie, aa 
an air, with other WoUiS, might be well worth a place 
in your collection of lively songs ? 

If it were possible tr> procure songi ->f merit, it would 
be proper to have one set of Scot* •• Jids to every air, 
and that the set of words to wav.'i MS uotei ought t« 



126 



LETTERS. 



be set. There is a naivete, a pastoral simplicity iu a 
slight intermixture of Scots words and phraseology, 
which is more in unison (at least to my taste, and I 
will add to every genuine Caledonian taste) with the 
simple pathos, or rustic sprightliness of our native mu- 
sic, than any English verses, whatever. 

The very name of Peter Pindar is an acquisition to 
your work. His Gregory is beautiful. I have tried 10 
give you a set of stanzas iu Scots, on the same subject, 
which are at your service. Not that I intend to enter 
the lists with Peter ; that would be presumption in- 
deed. My song, though much inferior in poetic merit, 
has, I think, more of the ballad simplicity in it.* 

My most respectful compliments to the honourable 
gentleman who favoured me with a postscript in your 
last. He shall hear from me and receive his MSS. 



I 



No. XIII 
MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

Wth March, 1793; 



MY DEAR SIR, 

The song prefixed is one of my juvenile works. t I 
leave it in your hands. I do not think it very remarka- 
ble, either for its merits or demerits. It is impossible 
(at least 1 feel it so in my stinted powers) to be always 
original, entertaining and witty. 

"What is become of the list, &c. of your songs ? I 
shall be'out of all temper with you by and by. I have 
always looked upon myself as the prince of indolent 
correspondents, and valued myself accordingly ; and I 

•will not, cannot bear rivalship from you, nor any body 

' else. 



No. XIV. 
MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

With the first copy of Wandering Willie. 
See Poems, p. 87. 

March, 1793. 

I leave it to you, my dear Sir, to determine whe- 
ther the above, or the old Thro' the lang Muir. be the 
best. 

* For Burus's words, see Poems, p. 86. The song 
of Dr. Walcott, on the same subject, is as follows : 

Ah ! ope, Lord Gregory, thy door ! 

A midnight wanderer sighs : 
Hard rush the rains, the tempests roar, 

And lightnings cleave the skies. 

Who comes with wo at this drear night — 

A pilgrim of the gloom 1 
If she whose love did once delight, 

My cot shall y ; eld her room. 

Alas ! thou heard'st a pilgrim mourn, 

That once was prized by thee ; 
Think of the ring by yonder burn 

Thou gav'st to love and me. 

But should'st thou not poor Marian know, 

I'll turn my feet and part ; 
And think the storms thai round me blow, 

Far kinder than thy heart. 

I I is but doing justice to Dr. Walcott to mention, that 
his song is the original. Mr Burns saw it, liked it, and 
immediately wrote the other on the same subject, 
■wjuish is derived from an old Scottish ballad of uncer- 
taiu origin. E. 

t Mary Morison, Poems, p. 86. 



No. XT. 

MR. BURNS TO MR. TIIOMSCK 
OPEN THE DOOR TO ME, OH I 

With Alterations. 

Oh ! open the door, some pity show, 
Oh ! open the door to me, Oh I* 

See Poems, p. 87. 
I do not know whether this song be eally mended 



No. XVI. 

MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

JESSIE. 

Tune — " Bonnie Dundee." 

True hearted was he, the sad swain o' the Yarrow 
And fair are the maids on the banks o' the Ayr ; 

See Poems, p. 87. 



MK 



No. XV 11. 
THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 



Edinburgh, Id April, 1793. 
I will not recognize the title you give yourself, " the 
prince of indiUnt correspondents ," but if the adjec- 
tive were taken away, 1 think the title would then fit 
you exactly. It gives me pleasure to find you can fur- 
nish anecdotes with respect to most of the songs ; these 
will he a literary curiosity. 

I now send you my list of the songs which I believe 
will be lound nearly complete. I have put down the 
first lines of all the English songs which I propose giv- 
ing in addition to the Scotch veises. If any others oc- 
cur to you, better adapted to the character'of the airs, 
pray mention them, when you favour me with vow 
strictures upon every thing eke relating to the work. 

Pleyel has lately sent me a number of the songs, with 
his symphonies and accompaniments added to them. 
1 wish you were here. Unit 1 might serve up some of 
them to you with your own verses, by way of dessert 
after dinner, 'j here is so much delightful fancy in the 
symphonies, and such a delicate simplicity in the ac- 
companiments — they are indeed beyond all praise. 

I am very much pleased with the several last pro- 
ductions of your muse : your Lord Gregory, in my es- 
timation, is more interesting than Peter's, beautiful as 
his is! lour Here area Willie must undergo some 
alterations to suit the air. Mr. Erskine and I have 
been conning it over : he will suggest what is i 
to make them a fit match.! 



* This second line was originally, 
Ij loce ii may na be, O .' 

T See the altered copy o! Wandei ing Willie, p. 88 of 
the Poems. Several of the alterations seem to be of 
little importance in themselves, and were adopted, it 
may be presumed, for the sake of suiting the words 
better to the music. The Homeric epithet for the sea, 
dark-heaving, suggested by Mr. Erskine, is in itselt 
more beautiful, as well perhaps as more sublime, than 
wild roaring, which he has retained ; but as it is only 
applicable to a placid state of the sea , or at most to the 
swell left on its surface after the storm is over, it gives 
a picture of that element not so well adapted to the 
ideas of eternal separation, which the fair mourner is 



LETTERS. 



127 



The gentleman I have mentioned, whose fine taste 
you are no stranger to, is so well pleased both with the 
musical and poetical part of our work, that he has 
volunteered his assistance, and has already written 
four songs for it, which, by his own desire, 1 send for 
your perusal. 



No. XVIII. 

MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

WHEN WILD WAR'S DEADLY BLAST WAS 
BLAWN. 

Air—" The Mill Mill 0." 

When wild war's deadly blast was blawn, 
And gentle peace returning, 

See Poems, p. 87. 

MEG 0' THE MILL. 

Air—" bonnie lass will you lie in a barrack." 

O ken ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten, 
An' keu ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten ? 

See Poems, p. 88. 



MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

1th April, 1793. 
Thank you, my dear Sir, for your packet. You 
cannot imagine how much this business of composing 
for your publication has added to my enjoyments. 
What with my early attachment to' ballads, your 
books, &c. ballad-making is now as completely my 
hobby-horse as ever fortification was uncle Toby's ; so 
I'll e'en canter it away till 1 come to the limit of my 
race (God grant that I may take the right side of the 
winning post !) and then cheerfully looking back on the 
honest folks with whom I have oeen happy, I shall sae 
or sing, " Sae merry as we a' hae been !" and raising 
my last looks to the whole human race, the last words 
of the voice of Coila* shall be, " Good night and joy 
be wi' you a' !" So much for my past words : now 
for a few present remarks, as they have occurred at 
random on looking over your list. 

The first lines of The last time I came o'er the moor, 
and several other lints in it, are beautiful ; but in my 
opiuion— pardon me revered shade of Ramsay! the 
song is unworthy of the divine air. 1 shall try to 
make or mend. For ever, Fortune, wilt thou prove, is 

charming song! but Logan bur n and Logan braes, 
re sweetly susceptible of rural imagery : I'll try that 
likewise, and if 1 succeed, the other song may class 
among the English ones. 1 remember the two last 
lines of a verse, in some of the old songs of Logan 
Water (for I know a good many different ones) which 
I think pretty. 

" Now my dear lad maun face his faes, 
Far, far frae me and Logan braes." 

supposed to imprecate. From the original song of 
Here awa Willie, Burns lias borrowed nothing but the 
-econd line and part of the first. The superior excel- 
|lence of this beautiful poem, will, it is hoped, justify 
the different editions of it which we have given. E. 

Burns here calls himself the Voice of Coila in imi- 
tation of Ossian, who denominates himself the Voice 
■>/ Carta. Sae merry as we a? hae been; and Good 
light and joy be wi' you a', are the names o f twe 
Scottish tunes, 



My Patie is a lover gay, is unequal. " His mind la 
never muddy," is a muddy expression indeed. 

" Then I'll resign and marry Pate, 
And syne my cockernony." — 

This is surely far unworthy of Ramsay, or yonr 
book. My song, Eizs of Barley, to the same tune, 
does not altogether please me ; but if 1 can mend it, 
and thrash a few loose sentiments out of it, I will 
submit it to your consideration. The Lass o' Patie's 
Mill is one of Ramsay's best songs; but there is one 
loose sentiment in it, which my much valued friend 
Mr. Erskine will take into his critical considera- 
tion. — In Sir J. Sinclair's Statistical volumes, are two 
claims, one, I think, from Aberdeenshire, and the 
other from Ayrshire, for the honour of this song. The 
following anecdote, which 1 had from the present Sir 
William Cunningham, of Robertland, who had it of 
the late John Earl of Loudon, 1 can, on such authori 
ties, believe 

Allan Ramsay was residing at Loudon-castle with 
the then Earl, father to Earl John ; and one forenoon, 
riding or walking out together, his Lordship and 
Allan passed a sweet romantic spot on Irvine water, 
still called " Patie's Mill," where a bonnie lass was 
"tedding hay, bare headed on the green." My Lord 
observed to Allan, that it would be a fine theme for a 
song. Ramsay took the hint, and lingering behind, 
he composed the first sketch of it, which he produced 
at dinner. 

One day I heard Mary say, is a fine song ; but for 
consistency's sake alter the name " Adonis." Where 
there ever such banns published, as a purpose of mar- 
riage between Adonis and Mary > I agree with you 
that my song, T/iere's nought but care on every hand, 
is much superior to Poortith cauld. The original 
song, The Mill Mill O. though excellent, is, on account 
of delicacy, inadmissable ; still I like the title, and 
think a Scottish song would suit the notes best ; and 
let your chosen song, which is very pretty, follow, as 
an English set. The Banks of the Dee, is, you know, 
literally Langol.ee, to siow time. The song is well 
enough, but has some false imagery in it ; for in 
stance, 

" And sweetly the nightingale sung from the tree." 

In the first place, the nightingale sings in a low 
bush, but never from a tree ; and in the second place, 
there never was a nightingale seen, or heard, on the 
banks of the Dee. or on the banks of any other river 
in Scotland. Exotic rural imagery is always com- 
paratively flat. If I could hit on a stanza, equal to 
The small birds rejoice, &c. 1 do myself honestly 
avow, that I think it a superior song.* John Ander- 
son my jo — the song to this tune in Johnson's Museum, 
is my composition, and I think it not my worst ; if it 
suit you, take it, and welcome. Your collection of 
sentimental and pathetic songs, is in my opinion, very 
complete ; but not so your comic ones. Where are 
Tullocngorum, Lumps o' pudiin, Tibbie Fowler, and 
several others, which, in my humble judgment, are 
well worthy of preservation ? There is also one senti- 
mental song of mine in the Museum, which never was 
known out of the immediate neighbourhood, until I 
gut it taken down from a country girl's singing. It is 
called Craigieburn Wood ; and in the opinion of Mr. 
Clarke, is one of the sweetest Scottish songs. He is 
quite an enthusiast about it ; and 1 would take his 
taste in Scottish music against the taste of most con- 
noisseurs. 

You are quite right in inserting the last five in your 
list, though they are certainly Irish. Shepherds, 1 have 
lost my love ! is to me a heavenly air — what would 
you think of a set of Scottish verses to it? 1 have 

* It will be found in the course of this correspon- 
dence, that the Bard produced a second stanza cf The 
1 Chevalier's Lament (to which he here alludes) worth? 
of the first. E. 



LETTERS. 



Z23 

' , .11 „w» • hut there is a quality more necessary thin 

a lady's song. I enclose ar 



I enclose an altered, not amended 
coiv for vou% yon choose to set the tune to it, and 
let the Irish verses follow.* 

Mr. Erskine's songs are all pretty, but his Lone 
Vale, is divine, "iours, &c. 



Let 



• know just how you like these random hinti 



foregoing 



No. XX. 



MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 

Edinburgh, April, 1793. 

I rejoice to find, my dear Sir, that ^nad-maki^ 
continues to be your hobbyhorse Ureat » y twould 
fSK?S?W ^thetorld wth your 
horsemanship." 

I know there are a good many lively songs of merit 
that I have not put down "'>'-'\f/?'' 1 /^ ,. ^ y 

alter it, except the last stanza.' 



No. XXI. 
MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

April, H93. 

I have yours, my dear Sir, this moment. 1 shall 
answer it and your former letter, in my desultory way 
of saying whatever comes uppermost. 

The business of many of our tunes wanting at the 
beginning, what fiddlers call a starung-note, is often a 
rub to us poor rhymers. 

« There's braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes 
That wander through the blooming heather, 



Ramsay as every other ^^"^^app^e^f 

equally happy >» ms \ nec , e ' BllU ,, ^ ' Mr \V pro- 

1 1 ighlander mended his gun-he gave it a new stocK, a 
new lock, and a new barrel. 

I do not by this object to leaving out improper 1 
stanzas, where that can be done without spm . igthe 
whole "ne stanza in The lass oj Fatie s Ai./Z, must 
be left out: the song will be nothing worse to it. 1 
am not sure if we can lake the same liberty ^vith C orn 
,;■•■<, nre bunnie. Perhaps it might want the ast 

anza land be the better or it. "-««*«*< Vhave 
deen von must leave with me yet a while. 1 have 
vowed to have a song to that air, on the lady .whom I 
attempted to celebrate in the verses PoorMh M«« 
and restless love. At any rate my other song, tr^efi 
S^«. -ill never suit. '^'-'^^ 
?n Scotland under the old title, and l0 . tie "XW 
tune of that name, which of course would mar the pro- 
gress of your s .n S lo relehrity. Your boolr w, be .the 
standard of Scots songs for the future : let tl 
ever keep your judgment on the alarm. 



you may alter to 

« Braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes, 
Ye wander," &c. 
My song, Here awa, there <B»tt, as amended by Mr. 
Erskine, 1 entirely approve of, and return you. + 

Give me leave to criticise your taste in the only 
thin" in which it is in my opinion reprehensible. I'm 
know "Cght to know something of my own trade 
Of patho^, sentiment, and point, yon are a complete 
• Mr Thomson, it appears, did not approve of this 
•on- even in its altered state. It does not appear m 
the"corre.pondence ; but it is probably one to be fo 
in his MSS. beginning, 

" Yestreen I got a pint of wine, 

A place where body saw na ; _ 
Yestreen lay on this breast of mine, 
The gowdon locks of Anna." 

It is highly characteristic of our Bard, but the strain 
of sentiment does not correspond with the air to which 
he proposes it should be allied. E. 

\ The original letter from Mr. Thomson contains 
many observations on the Scottish songs, and on the 
manner of adapting tne words to the music, winch, at 
his desire, are suppressed. The subsequent letter of 
Mr. Burns refers to several of these observations. E. 
X The reader has already seen that Burns did not 
finally adopt all of Mr. Erskine's alterations. E- 



I send a song, on a celebrated toast in this country 
to suit Bunni? Dundee. I send you also a ballad tc j 
the Mill Mill O.* 

The last time T came o'er the moor I would fain at 
temnt to make a Scots sons for, and let Ramsay s M 
the Kn dish set You shall hear from me soon. V, hen 
you go I"- London on this business, can you come by 
O, mfriesi l have still several MS. Scots airs by me- 
w ch T have picked up, mostly from the snig.ng o 

very feature for which 1 like them I call them m- 
pie : vou would pronounce them rally. Do you know 
I fine air called Jackie Hume'* Lament ? have a 
maK „f considerable merit to t wt air. 1 11 e« dose 

L^otS Mu iTt^n^^ t 

', a very beautiful little air, which 1 had taken down 
from viva vocc.% Adieu 1 



No. XXII, 

MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

April, 1793. 
MY DEAR SIR, 

I had scarcely put my last letter into the post-office, 
when 1 took up the subject of Tlie last time I ca,n4 
- The song to the tune of Bonnie Dundee is that 
grven in the Poems p. 87. The ballad to the Mill Mill 
O, is that beginning. 

'• When wild war's deadly blast was blawn. 

t The song here mentioned is that given in th« 
Foems p. 88. O hen yc what Meg o' the Mill has got 
:m> This song is surely Mr. Burns' s own writing 
though he does not generally praise his own songs s< 
much - Nnteby Mr. Thomson. 

\ The air here mentioned is that for which he wrot 
the ballad of Bonnie Jean, given in p. 89 of the Poem 



LETTERS. 



129 



er the moor, and, ere I slept, drew the outlines of 
the foregoing.* How far 1 have succeeded, I leave 
on this, as on every other occasion, to you to decide. 

1 own mv vanity is flattered, when you give my songs 
a place in your elegant and superb work ; but to be of 
service to the wont is my first wish. As I have often 
told you, I do not in a single instance wish you, out of 
compliment to me, to insert auy thing of mine. One 
nintlet me give you — whatever Mr. Pleyel does, let 
him not alter one iota of the original Scottish airs ; 
I mean in the song department ; but let our national 
music preserve its native features. "They are, I own, 
frequently wild and irreducible to the more modern 
rules ; but on that very eccentricity, perhaps, de- 
pends a great part of their effect. 



No. XXIII. 

MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS, 

Edinburgh, 2&th April, TO3. 
I heartily thank you, my dear Sir, for your last two 
letters, and the songs which accompanied" them. 1 am 
always both instructed and entertained by observa- 
tions ; and the frankness with which you speak out 
your mind, is to me highly agreeable. It is very possi- 
ble I may not have the true idea of simplicity in com- 
position. I confess there are several songs, of Allan 
Ramsay's for example, that I think silly enough, 
which another person, more conversant than I have 
been with country people, would perhaps call simple 
and natural. But the lowest scenes of simple nature 
will not please generally, if copied precisely as they 
mre. The poet, like the painter, must select what will 
form an agreeable as well as a natural picture. On 
this subject it were easy to enlarge; but at present 
suffice it to say, that I consider simplicity, rightly un- 
derstood, as a most essential quality in. composition, 
and the ground-work of beauty in all the arts. 1 will 
gladly appropriate your most interesting new ballad, 
When wild war's deadly bias', &c. to the Mill Mill O, 
as well as the two other songs to their respective airs : 
but the third and fourth lines of the first verse must 
undergo some little alteration in order to suit the 
music. Pleyel does not alter a single note of the songs. 
That would be absurd indeed! With the airs which 
he introduces into the sonatas, I allow him to take 
such liberties as he pleases ; but that has nothing to 
do with the songs. 



beauty ; so you see how doctors differ. I shall now 
with as much alacrity as I can muster, go on with your 
commands. 

You know Frazer, the hautboy-player in Edin- 
burgh — he is here, instructing a band of music for a 
I fencible corps quartered in this country. Among 
many of his airs that please me, there is one, well 
known as a reel, by the name of The Quaker's Wife; 
and which I remember a grand aunt of mine used to 
sing by the name of Liggeiam Cosh, my bonnie wee 
Ins.-:. Mr. Frazer plays it slow, and with an expres- 
sion that quite charms me. I became such an enthu- 
siast about it, that I made a song for it. which I here 
subjoin; and enclose Frazer's set of the tune. If they 
hit your fancy, they are at your service : if not, return 
me the tune, and 1 will put it iu Johnson's Museum. 
I think the song is not in iny worst i 



Blythe hae I been on yon hill, 
As the lambs before me ; 



I should wish to hear how this pleases you. 



P. S. I wish you would do as you proposed with 
your .Rig's of Barley. If the loose sentiments are 
threshed out of it, I will find an air for it ; but as to 
this there is no hurry. 



MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

June, f793. 
When I tell you, my dear Sir, that a friend of mine, 
in whom I am much interested, has fallen a sacrifice 
to these accursed times, you will easily allow that it 
might unhinge me for doing any good among ballads. 
My own loss, as to pecuniary matters, is trifling : but 
the total ruin of a much-loved friend, is a loss indeed. 
Pardon my seeming inattention to your last com- 
mands. 

I cannot alter the disputed lines in the Mill Mill 
0.\ What you think a defect I esteem as a positive 

* See Poems, page 136. — Young Peggy. 

t The lines were the third and fourth. See Poems, 



' Wi' mony a sweet babe fatherless, 
Aud mony a widow mourning." 



MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

2oth June, 1793. 
Have you ever, my dear Sir, felt your bosom ready 
to burst with indignation on reading of those mighty 
villains who divide kingdom against kingdom, desolate 
provinces, and lay nations waste, out of the wanton- 
ness of ambition, or often from still more ignoble pas- 
sions? In a mood of this kind to-day, 1 recollected the 
air of Logan Water-; and it occurred to me that its 
querulous melody probably had its origin from the 
plaintive indignation of some swelling, suffering heart, 
fired at the tyrannic strides of some public destroyer ; 
and overwhelmed with private distress, the conse- 
quence ofa country's ruin. If] have done any thing at 
all like justice to my feelinss, the following song, com- 
posed in three quarters of an hour's meditation in my 
elbow chair, ought to have some merit. 

O Logan, sweetly didst thou glide, 
That day I was my Willie's bride ; 

See Poems, p. 88. 

Do you know the following beautiful little fragmen 
in Witherspoon's collection of Scots Songs? 

" O gin my love were yon red rose, 
That glows upon the castle wa' ," 

See Poems, p. 89. 

This thought is inexpressibly beautiful : and quite, 
so far as I know, original. It is too short for a song, 
else I would forswear you altogether, unless you gave 
it a place. I have often tried to eke a stanza to it, bui 
in vain. After balancing myself for a musing five 
minutes, on the hind legs of my elbow chair, I produced 
the following. 

As our poet had maintained a long silence, and the 
first number ef Mr. Thomson's Musical Work was in 
the press, this gentleman ventured by Mr. Erskine's 
advice, to substitute for them in that publication, 

" And eyes again with pleasure beam'd 
That had been blear'd with mourning." 

Though better suited to the music, these lines are infe- 
rior to the original. This is the only alteration adopt- 
ed by Mr. Thompson, which Burns did not approve, 
or at least assent to. 

N2 



t&o 



LETTERS. 



Tbe verses are far inferior to the foregoing, I frankly 
confess ; but if worthy of insertion at all, they might 
be first in place ; as every poet, who knows any thing 
of his trade, will husband his best thoughts for a con- 
cluding stroke. 

O, were my love yo.; i.tt.'a fair, 
Wi' purple blos3on«« .' the «pring ; 

See Poems, p. 89. 



MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 

Monday, 1st July, 1793. 
I am extremely sorry, my good Sir, that any thing 
should happen to unhinge you. The times are terri- 
bly out of tu« ;; and when harmony will be restored, 
Heaven km %:., 

The first boo'ic ol songs, just published, will be des- 
patched to you along with this. Let me be favored 
with your opinion of it frankly and freely. 

I shall certainly give a place to the song you have 
written for the Uuaker's Wife; it is quite enchanting. 
Pray will you return the list of songs with such airs 
added to it as you think ought to be included. The 
business now rests entirely on myself, the gentlemen 
who originally agreed to join the speculation having 
requested to be off. No matter, a loser I canaot be. 
The superior excellence of the work will create a gene- 
-al demand for it as soon as it is properly known. And 
were the sale even slower than it promises to be, 1 
should be somewhat compensated for my labour, by the 
pleasure I shall receive from the music. I cannot ex- 
press how much 1 am obliged to you for the exquisite 
new songs you are sending me ; but thanks, my friend, 
are a poor return for what you have done: as i shall 
be benefited by the publication, you must suffer me to 
enclose a small mark of my gratitude,* and to repeat 
it afterwards when I find it convenient. Do not re- 
turn it, for, by Heaven, if you do, our correspondence 
is at an end : and though this would be no loss to you, 
ir. would mar the publication, which under your aus- 
pices cannot fail to be respectable and interesting. 



Wednesday morning. 
I thank you for your delicate additional verses to the 
old fragment, and for your excellent song to Logan 
Water; Thomson's truly elegant one will follow, for 
•he English singer. Your apostrophe to statesmen is 
admirable: but 1 am not sure if it is quite suitable to 
the supposed gentle character of the fair mourner who 
speaks it. 



No. XXV11. 
MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

July 2d, 1793. 
MY DEAR SIR, 

I have just finished the following ballad, and, as I do 
think it in my best style, I send it you. Mr. Clarke, 
who wrote down the air from Mrs. Burns's wood-note 
wild, is very fond of it, and has given it a celebrity, by 
teaching it to some young ladies of the first fashion 
here, if you do not like the air enough to give it a 
place in your collection, please return it. The song 
yon may keep, as I remember it. 

There was a lass, and she was fair, 
At kirk and market to be seen ; 

See Poems, p. S9. 

• Five pounds, 



I have some thoughts of inserting in your index, Of 
in my notes, the names of the fair ones, the themes of 
my songs, I do not mean the name at full ; but dashes 
or asterisms, so as ingenuity may find them out. 

The heroine of the foregoing is Miss M. daughter to 
Mr. M. of D. one of your subscribers. 1 have not 
painted her in the rank which she holds in life, but in 
the dress and character of a cottager. 



MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMPSON. 

July, 17S3. 
I assure you, my dear Sir, that you truly hurt me 
with your pecuniary parcel. It degrades me in my 
own eyes. However to return it would savour of af- 
fectation : but as to any more traffic of that debtor and 
creditor kind, I swear by that Honour which crowns 
the upright statue of Robert Uurns's Integrity— on the 
least motion of it, I will indignantly spurn the by-past 
transaction, and from that moment commence entire 
stranger to you! Burns's character for generosity of 
sentiment and independence of mind, will, I trust, long 
out live any of his wants which the cold unfeeling ore 
can supply : at least, I will take care that such a cha- 
racter he shall deserve. 

Thank you for my copy of your publication. Never 
did my eyes behold, in any musical work, such elegance 
and correctness. Your preface, too, is admirably 
written : only your partiality to me has made you say 
too much : however, it will bind me down to double 
every effort in the future progress of the work. The 
following are a few remarks on the songs in the list you 
sent me. I never copy what I write to you, so I may 
be often tautological, or perhaps contradictory. 

The Flowers of the Forest is charming as a poem, 
and should be, and must be, set to the notes; but, 
though out of your rule, the three stanzas beginning, 

" I hae seen the smiling o' fortune beguiling," 

are worthy of a place, were it but to immortalize the 
author of them, who is an old lady of my acquaintance 
and at this moment living in Edinburgh. (She is a 
Mrs. Cockburn ; I forget of what place; but from 
Roxburghshire. What a charming apostrophe is 

" O fickle fortune, why this cruel sporting, 
Why, why torment us— poor sons of a day .'" 

The old ballad, I wish I wet e where Helen lies, is 
silly to contemptibility.* My alteration of it in John- 
son's is not much better. Mr. Hukerton, in his what 
he calls ancient ballads, (many of them notorious, 
though beautiful enough, forgeries,) has the best set. 
It is full of his own interpolations, but no matter. 

In my next 1 will suggest to your consideration a few 
songs which may have escaped your hurried notice. 
| In the mean time, allow me to Congratulate you now, 
as a brother ot the quill. You have committed your 
character and fame : which will now be tried for ages 
to come, by the illustrious jury of the Sons and Daugh- 
ters cf Taste— all whom poesy can please, or music 
charm. 

Being a bard of nature, I have some pretensions to 
second sight ; and I am warranted by the spirit tc 
foretell and affirm, that your great-grand-child will 
hold up your volumes, ami say, with honest pride, 
" This so much admired selection was the work of mv 
ancestor." 

* There is a copy of this ballad given in the account 
of the Parish of Kirkpatrick-Fleeming, (which contains 
t he tomb of fair Helen Irvine,) in the Statistics of Sit 
John Sinclair, vol. xiii. p. k Z~lo, to which this character 

is certainly not applicable, 



LETTERS. 



131 



No. XXIX. 

MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 

Edinburgh, 1st August, 1793. 
DEAR SIR, 

I had the pleasure of receiving your last two letters, 
and am happy to find you are quite pleased with the 
appearance of the first book. When you come to hear 
the songs sung and accompanied, you will be charmed 
with them. 

The bonnie brucket Lassie, certainly deserves better 
ferses, and 1 hope you will match her. Could Kail 
in Aberdeen — Lee me in this ae night, and several of 
the livelier airs, wait the muse's leisure : these are 
peculiarly woithy of her choice gifts; besides, you'll 
notice that, in airs of this sort, the singer can always 
do greater justice to tlie poet, than in the slower airs of 
The Bush aboon Traquair, Lord Gregory, and the 
like ; for in the manner the latter are frequently sung, 
you must be contented with the sound, without the 
sense. Indeed both the airs and the words are dis- 
guised by the very slow, languid, psalm-siuging style 
in which they are too often performed, they loose ani- 
uatiou aud expression altogether ; and instead of 
: peaking to the mind, or touching the heart, they cloy 
^pon the ear, aud set us a yawning ! 

Your ballad, There was a lass and she was fair, is 
simple and beautiful, and shall undoubtedly grace my 



No. XXX. 
MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

■ August, 1793. 
MY DEAR THOMSON, 

I hold the pen for our friend Clarke, who at present 
's studying the music of the spheres at my elbow. 
The Georgium Sidus he thinks is rather out of tune ; 
so until he rectify that matter, he cannot stoop to 
terrestrial affairs. 

He sends you six of the Rondeau subjects, and if 
more are wanted, he says you shall have them. 



Confound your long stairs ! S.CLARKE. 

No. XXXI. 

MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

August, 1793. 
Your objection, my dear Sir, to the passages in my 
song of Logan Water, is right in one instance, but it is 
difficult to mend it ; if I can, I will. The other pas- 
sage you object to, does not appear in the same light 
to me. 

I have tried my hand on Robin Adair, and you will 
probably think, with little success ; but it is' such a 
cursed, cramp out-of the-way measure, that I despair 
of doing any thing better to it. 

PHILLIS THE FAIR. 

While larks with little wing, 
Fann'd the pure air, 

See Poems, p. 89. 

So much for namby-pamby. T may, after all, try my 
hand on it in Scots verse. There 1 always find myself 
most at home. 

I have just put the last hand to the song I meant for 
Caulrt Kail in Aberdeen. If it suits you to insert it, I 
shall be pleased, as the herione is a favourite of mine ; 
if not, 1 shall also be pleased ; because I wish, and 



will be glad, to see you act decidedly on the business.* 
' lis a tribute as a man of taste, and as an editor, 
which you owe yourself. 



MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 

August, 1793. 
MY GOOD SIR, 

I consider it one of the most agreeable circumstances 
attending this publication of mine, that it has procured 
rne so many of your mucli valued epistles. Pray make 
my acknowledgments to St. .Stephen for the tunes ; 
tell him I admit the justness of his complaint on my 
staircase, conveyed in his laconic postcript to your 
jeu d'esprit, which I perused more than once, without 
discovering exactly whether your discussion was miv 
sic, astronomy, or politics : though a sagacious friend, 
acquainted with the convivial habits of the poet and 
the musician, offered me a bet of two to one, you were 
just drowning care together ; that an empty bowl was 
the only thing that would deeply affect you, and the 
only matter you could then study how to' remedy ! 

I shall be glad to see you give Robin Adair a Scottish 
dress. Peter is furnishing him with an English suit 
for a change, and you are well matched together. 
Robin's air is excellent, though he certainly has an out 
of the way measure as ever Poor Parnassian wight 
was plagued with. I wish yon would invoke the muse 
for a single elegant stanza to be substituted for the 
concluding objectionable verses of Down the Burn 
Davie, so that this most exquisite song may no longer 
be excluded from good company. 

Mr. Allan has made an inimitable drawing from 
your John Anderson my Jo, which I am to have en- 
graved as a frontispiece to the humourous class of 
songs : you will be quite charmed with it I promise 
you. The old couple are seated by the fire-side. 
Mrs. Anderson, in great good humour, is clapping 
John's shoulder's while he smiles, and looks at her 
with such glee, as to show that he /idly recollects the 
pleasant days and nights when they were first ao 
quent. The drawing would do honour to the pencil oi 
Teniers. 



No. XXXIII. 

MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

August, 1793. 
That crinkum-crankum tune Robin Adair, has run 
so in my head, and I succeeded so ill in my last at 
tempt, that I have ventured in this morning's walk; 
one essay more. You, my dear Sir, will remember au 
unfortunate part of our worthy friend C.'s story, 
which happened about three years ago. That struck 
my fancy, and I endeavoured to do the idea justice ai 
follows : 

SONG. 

Had I a cave on some wild distant shore. 
Where the winds howl to the wave's dashing roar 
See Poems, p. 90. 

By the way, I have met with a musical Highlander 
in liredalbane's Fencibles, which are quartered here, 
who assures me that he well remembers his mother's 
singing Gaelic songs to both Ro'An Adair and Gram- 
achree. They certainly have more of the Scotch than 
Irish taste in them. 

This man comes from the vicinity of Inverness ; so 
it could not be any intercourse with Ireland that could 
bring them ; — except, what I shrewdly suspect to be 
the case, the wandering minstrels, harpers, and pipers, 



* The song herewith sent, is that 
Poems. 



91, of the 



132 



LETTERS. 



used to go frequently errant through the wilds both of 
Scotland and Ireland, and so some favourite airs might 
be common to both. A case in point — They have 
lately in Ireland, published an Irish air as they say ; 
called Caun da delink. The fact is, in a publication of 
Corri's, a great while ago, you will find the same air, 
called a Highland one, with a Gaelic sung set to it. 
Its name there, I think, is Oran Gaoil, and a flue air 
it is. Do ask honest Allan, or the Rev. Gaelic Par- 
son about these mat 



Geordie's Byre, when sung siow with expression ; I 
have wished that it had had better poetry ; that I haw* 
endeavoured to supply as follows : 

Adown winding Nith I did wander,* 

To mark the sweet flowers as they spring ; 

See Poems, p. 90. 

Mr. Clarke begs you to give Miss Phillis a comer m 
your book, as she is a particular flame of his. She is 
a Miss P. M . sister to Bonnie Jean. They are both 
pupils of h : s. You shall hear from me the very first 
grist I get from my ihyming mill. 






MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

August, 1793. 
MY DEAR SIR, 

Let me in this ae night, I will consider. I am glad 
that you are pleased with my song, Had la cave, 6fc, 
as 1 liked it myself. 

I walked out yesterday evening with a volume of 
tne Museum in my hand ; when turning up Allan 
Water, " What numbers shall the muse repeat," &c. 
WB as the words appeared to me rather unworthy of so fine 
Be, an air, and recollecting that it is on your list, [ sat and 
Sjp raved under the shade of an old thorn, till I wrote one 
B|' to suit thi» measure. I may be wrong ; but 1 think it 
■ not in my worst style. You must know, that in 
P Ramsay's Tea-table, where the modern song first ap- 
B 1 peared, the ancient name of the tune, Allan says, is 
jt Allan Water, or My love Annie's very bjnnie. This 
t last has certainly been a line of the original song ; so 
j> I took up the idea, and as you will see, have introduc- 
W ed the line in its place which I presume it formerly oc- 
f cupied ; thougli 1 likewise give you a chusing line, if 
it should not hit the cut of your fancy. 

By Allan stream I chanced to rove, 
While Phoebus sank beyond Benleddi,* 

See Poems, p. 90. 

Bravo ! says I, it is a good song. Should you think 
so too (not else) you can set the music to it, and let 
the other follow as Knglish verses. 

Autumn is my propitious season. I make more 
verses in it than all the year else 

God bless you ! 



No. XXXV. 

MP. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

August, 1793. 
Is Whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad, one of your 
airs ; I admire it much ; and yesterday 1 set the fol- 
lowing verses to it. lirbani, whom I have met with 
here, beggedThem of me, as he admires the air much ; 
but as I understand that he looks with rather an evil 
eye on your work, 1 did not choose to comply. How- 
ever, if the song does not suit your taste, I may pos- 
sibly send it him. The set of the air which I had in 
my eye is in Johnson's Museum. 

O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad,f 
O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad : 

See Poems, p. 90. 



Another favourite air of 



:, is, The muckin o' 



* A mountain, west of Strath-Allan, 3,009 feet high. 
R. B. 

t In some of the MSS. the four first lines run thus ; 

O whistle, and I'll come to thee, my jo, 
O whistle, and I'll come to thee, my jo , 
Tho' father and mother, aud a' shouid say no, 
O whistle, a*id I'll come to thee, my jo. 

See also Letter, No. LXXVII. 



No. XXXVI. 

MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMPSON 

August, 1793. 
That tune, Cauld Kail, is such a favourvte of yours, 
:aat I once more roved out yesterday for a gloamin- 
shot at the muses :f when the muse that presides o'er 
the shores of Nith, or rather my old inspiring, dearest 
nymph, Colia, whispered me "the following. 1 have 
two reasons for thinking that it was my eariy, sweet, 
simple iuspirer that was by my elbow, " smooth glid- 
ing without step," and pouring the song on my glow- 
ing fancy. In the first place, since I left Colia's native 
haunts, not a fragment of a poet has arisen to cheer 
her solitary musings, by catching inspiration from her ; 
so I more than suspect that she has followed me hither, 
or at least makes me occasional visits ; secondly, the 
last stanzas of this song I send you, is the very words 
that Colia taught me many years ago, and which I 
set to an old Scots reel in Johnson's Museum. 

Come, let me take thee to my breast, 
And pledge we ne'er shall sunder ; 

See Poems, p. 91. 

If you think the above will suit your idea of yonr 
favourite air, I shall be highly pleased. The last time 
I came o'er the jnoor, I cannot meddle with, as to 
mending it; and the musical world have been so long 
accustomed to Ramsay's words, that a different song, 
though positively superior, would not be so well receiv- 
ed. 1 am not fond of choruses to songs, so I have not 
made one for the foregoing. 



No. XXXVII. 

MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

August, 1793 
DAINTY DAVIE.* 

Now rosy May comes in wi' flowers, 

To deck her gay, green spreading bowers ; 

See Poems, p. 91 . 

So much for Davie. The chorus, you know, is to 
the low part of the tune. See Clarke's set of it in the 
Museum. 

N. B. In the Museum they have drawled out the 
tune to twelve lines of poetry, which is **** nonsense. 
Four lines of song, and four of chorus is the way. 

* This song, certainly beautiful, would appear to 
more advantage without the chorus ; as is indeed the 
case with several other songs of our author. E. 

t Gloamin — twilight ; probably from glooming. A 
beautiful poetical word whbh o'jjht t3 be adopted in 
England. A gloamin-shot, a twilight interview. 

% Dainty Davie is the title of an old Scotch song, 
from which Bums has taken nothiug but the title and 
the measure. E. 



LETTERS. 



133 



No. XXXVIII. 

MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 

Edinburgh, 1st. Sept. 1793. 
MY DEAR SIR, 

Since writing you last, I have received half a dozen 
songs with which lam delighted beyond expression. 
The humour and fancy of Whistle, and I'll come to you, 
my lad, will render it nearly as great a favourite as 
Duncan Gray. Come let me take thee to my breas: — 
Adown winding Nith, and By Allan stream, &c. are 
full of imagination and feeling; and sweetly suit the 
airs for which they are intended. Had I a cave on 
some wild distant shore, is a striking and atfecting 
composition. Our friend, to whose story it refers, 
read it with a swelling heart. 1 assure you. The union 
we are now forming, I think, can never be broken ; 
these songs of yours will descend with the music to the 
latest posterity, and will be fondly cherished so long 
as genius, taste and sensibility exist in our island. 

While the muse seems so propitious, I think it right 
to enclose a list of all the favours I have to ask of her, 
no fewer than twenty and three ! 1 have burdened 
the pleasant Peter with as many as it is probable he 
will attend to : most of the remaining airs would puz- 
zle the English poet not a little ; they are of that pecu- 
liar measure and rhythm, that they must be familiar 
to him who writes for them. 



No. XXXIX. 

MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

Sept. 1793. 
You may readily trust, my dear Sir, that any exer- 
tion in my power is heartily at your service. But one 
thing 1 must hint to you ; the very name of Peter Pin- 
dar is of great service to your publication, so get a verse 
from him now and then . though I have no objection, 
as well as I can, to bear the burden of the business. 

You know that my pretensions to musical taste are 
merely a few of nature's instincts, untaught and un- 
tutored by art. For this reason, many musical com- 
positions, particularly where much of the merit lies in 
counterpoint, however they may transport and ravish 
the ears of you connoisseurs, affect my simple lug no 
otherwise than merely as melodious din. On the 
other hand, by way of amends, 1 am delighted with 
many little melodies, which the learned musician 
despises as silly and insipid. I do not know whether 
the old air Hey tu'lie lei tie may rank among this num- 
ber: but well 1 know that, with Frazer's hautboy, it 
has often filled my eyes with tears. There is a tradi- 
tion, which 1 have met with in many places of Scot- 
land, that it was Robert Bruce "s inarch at the battle 
of Bannockburn. This thought, in my solitary wan- 
derings, warmed me to a pitch of enthusiasm on the 
theme of Liberty and Independence, which 1 threw 
into a kind of Scottish ode, fitted to the air, that one 
might suppose to be the gallant Royal Scot's address 
to his heroic followers on that eventful morning." 

So may God ever defend the cause of truth and 
Liberty, as he did that day ! — Amen. 

P. S. I showed the air to Urbani, who was highly 
pleased with it, and begged me to make soft verses for 
it ; but 1 had no idea of giving myself any trouble on 
the subject, till the accidental recollection of that 
glorious struggle for freedom, associated with the 
glowing ideas of some other struggles of the same 
nature, not quite so ancient, roused my rhyming 
mania. Clarke's set of the tune, with his bass, you 

* Here followed Bruce's address as given in the 
Poems, p. 92. 

This nooie strain was conceived by our poet during 
« storm among the wilds of Glen-Ken in Galloway. 



| will find in the Museum ; though I am afraid that tha 
air is not what will entitle it to a place in your elegant 
selection. 



MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

September, 1793. 
I dare say, my dear Sir, that you will begin to think 
my correspondence is persecution. No matter, I can't 
help it; a ballad is my hobby-horse; which though 
otherwise a simple sort of harmless idiotical beast 
enough, has yet this blessed headstrong property, that 
when once it has fairly made off with a hapless wight, 
it gets so enamoured with the tingle-gingle, tinkle-gin- 
gle, of its own bells, that it is sure to run poor pilgar- 
lic, the bedlam-jockey, quite beyond any useful point, 
or post in the common race of man. 



The following song 1 have composed for Oran GaoiLt 
the Highland air that you tell me in your last, you 
have resolved to give a place to in your book. I have j 
this moment finished the song, so you have it glowing 
from the mint. If it suit you. well! — it" not, 'tis aba 
well! 



Behold the hour, the boat arrive ; 
Thou goest, thou darling of my heart 1 ] 
See Poems, p. 91. 



MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 

Edinburgh, 5th September, 1793. 
I believe it is generally allowed that the greatest 
modesty is the sure attendant of the greatest merit. 
While you are sending me verses that even Shakspeare 
might be proud to own, you speak of them as if they 
were ordinary productions ! Your heroic ode is to 
me the noblest composition of the kind in the Scottish 
language. I happened to dine yesterday with a party 
of our friends, to whom I read it. They were a!) 
charmed with it, intreated me to find out a suitable 
air for it, and reprobated the idea of giving it a tune 
so totally devoid of interest or grandeur as Hey tu'lie 
taifie. Assuredly your partaility for this tune must 
arise from the ideas associated in your mind by the 
tradition concerning it ; for I never heard any person, 
and 1 have conversed again and again, with the great- 
est enthusiasts for Scottish airs, 1 say I never heard 
any one speak of it as worthy of notice. 

I have been running over the whole hundred airs, of 
which I lately sent you the list; and I think Lewie 
Gordon, is most happily adapted to your ode: at 
least with a very slight variation of the fourth line, 
which 1 shall presently submit to you. There is in 
Lewie Gordon more of the grand than the plaintive, 
particularly when it is sung with a degree of spirit 
which your words would oblige the singer to give it. 
I would have no scruple about substituting your ode 
in the room of Lewie Gordon, which has neither the 
interest, the grandeur, nor the poetry that character- 
ize your verses. Now tue variation 1 have to suggest 
upon the last line of each verse, the only line too short 
for the air, is as follows ; 

Verse 1st, Or to glorious victorie. 

2d, Chains — chains andslaverie. 
od, Let him, let him turn and Hie. 
ith, Let him bravely follow me. 
oth. But they shall, they shall be free. 
6th, Let us, let us do or die ! 

II you connect each line with its own verse, I do not 
think you will find that either the sentiment or the 
expression loses any of its energy. The only line 



134 



LETTERS. 



which I dislike in the whole of the song is, " Welcome 
to your -gory bed." Would not another word be 
preferable to welcome ? In your next I will expect to 
be informed whether you agree to what I have pro- 
posed. The little alterations I submit with the great- 
est deference. 

The beauty of the verses you have made for Oran 
Gaoil will eusure celebrity to the air. 



No. XLII. 

MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

September, 1793. 
I have received your list, my dear Sir, and here go 
uziy observations on it.* 

^Bourn the burn Davie. I have this moment tried an 
^Keration. leaving out the last half of the third stanza, 
$dnd the first half of the last stanza, thus : 

KJf ; . As down the burn they took their way 

V And thro' the flowery dale ; 
^EHis cheek to hers he aft did lay, 

Kj And love was ay the tale. 



w; 



ith " Mary, when shall we return, 
£' Sic pleasure to renew ?" 
^■Quoth Mary, " Love, I like the burn, 
And ay shall follow you." j 

^^Bftro' the wood Laddie — I am decidedly of opinion 
^^Et both in this, and There'll never be peace till Jamie 
H$t hame, the second or high part of the tune, being 
^HJpetition of the first part an octave higher, is only 
■^instrumental music, one would be much better 
Emitted in singing. 

Cowden-knowcs. Remember in your index that the 
song in pure English to this tune, beginning, 

' When summer comes the swains on Tweed.' 

is the production of Crawford. Robert was his 
Christian name. 

Laddie lie near mc, must lie by me for some time. I 
do not know the air ; and until I am complete master 
of a tune, in my own singing, (such as it is,) 1 can never 
compose for it. My way is : I consider the poetic 
sentiment correspondent to my idea of the musical 
expression ; then choose my theme ; begin one stanza : 
when that is composed, which is generally the most 
difficult part of the business, I walk out, sit down now 
and then, look out for objects in nature around me 
that are in unison ami harmony with the cogitations of 
my fancy, and workings of my bosom: humming every 
now and then the air, with the verses I have framed. 
When I feel my muse beginning to jade, I retire to the 
solitary fire side of my study, and there commit my 
effusions to paper ; swinging at intervals on the hind 
legs of my elbow chair, by way of calling forth my 
own critical strictures, as my pen goes on. Seriously, 
this, at home, is almost invariably my way. 

What cursed egotism ! 

Gill Morice, I am for leaving out. It s a plaguy 
length ; the air itself is never sung ; and its place can 

* Mr. Thomson's list of songs for his publication. 
In his remarks, the bard proceeds in order, and goes 
through the whole ; but on many of them he merely 
signifies his approbation. All his remarks of any im- 
portance are presented to the reader. 

t This alteration, Mr. Thomson has adopted (or at 
Uast intended to adopt) instead of the last stanza of 
the original song, which ia objectionable, in point of 
delicacy. E. 



well be supplied by one or two songs for fine airs that 
are not in your list. For instance, Cra%ieburn-wood 
and Roy's Wife. The first, beside its intrinsic merit, 
has novelty ; and the last has high merit, as well as 
great celebrity. I have the original words of a song 
tor the last air, in the hand-writing of the lady who 
composed it : and they are superior to any edition of 
the song which the public has yet seen." 

Highland Laddie. The old set will please a mers 
Scotch ear best; and the new an Italianized one. 
There is a third, and what Oswald calls the old Ilish- 
Innd Laddie, which pleases more than either of them. 
It is sometimes called Ginzlnn Johnnie; it being tin 
air of an old humorous tawdry song of that name. Yoa 
will find it in the Museum, / hae been at Crookieden, 
&c. 1 would advise you in this musical quandary, U 
offer Up your prayers to the muses for inspiring direc- 
tion : and iii the mean time, waiting for this direction. 
bestow a libation to Bacchus ; and there is not a doubl 
but yon will hit on a judicious choice. Probatwn Est. 

Aitld Sir Simon, I must beg you to leave out, and 
put in its place The Quaker's (Fife. 

BlVhe hae T been o'er the hill, is one of the finest songs 
ever I made in my life : and besides, is composed on a 
young lady, positively the most beautiful, lovely wo 
man in the world. As 1 purpose giving you the names 
and designations of all my heroines, to appear in some 
future edition of your work, perhaps half a century 
hence, you must certainly include The bonniest lass in 
a' the warld in your collection. 

Daintie Davie, I have heard sung, nineteen thousand 
nine hundred and ninety-nine times, and always with 
the chorus to the low part of the tune ; and nothing has 
surprised me so much as your opinion on this subject. 
If it will not suit as I proposed, we will lay two ot the 
stanzas together, and then make the chorus follow. 

Fee him father. I enclose you Frazer's set of this 
tune when he plays it slow : in fact he makes it the 
language of despair. I shall here give you two stanzas 
in that style, merely to try if it will be any improve- 
ment. Were it possible, in singing to give it half the 
pathos which Frazer gives it in playing, it wouid make 
an admirably pathetic song. I do not give these verses 
for any merit they have. I composed them at the time 
in which Pane Allan's mit.lfr o'iel, that was about the 
back o' midnipht ; and by the lea side of a bowl of 
punch, which had overset every mortal in company, 
except the hautbois and the muse. 

Thou hast left me ever, .lamie. Thou hast left me ever, 
Thou hast left me ever, Jamie, Thou hast left me ever. 
See Poems, p. 91. 

Jnch y and Jennie 1 would discard, and in its place 

would put Tin i . '.■ n ir /'.c.',- about the house, which has 
a very pleasant air, and which is positively the finest 
love ballad in that style in the Scottish or perhaps any 
other language. When she came ben she bobbi', as an 
air, is more beautiful than either, and in the andante 
way, would unite with a charming sentimental ballad. 

g , a ■• i/r my father? is one of my greatest favourites. 
The evening before last. I wandered out, and began a 
tender song; ill what 1 think is its native style. I 
must premise, that the old way, and the way'toghe 
most effect, is to have no starting note, as the fiddlers 
call it, but to burst at once into the pathos. Every 
country girl sings— Sato ye my father, &c. 

My song is but just begun : and I should like, befoie 
I proceed, to know your opinion of it. I have sprinkled 
it with the .-'cottish dialect, but it may easily be turned 
into correct English. t 

* This song, so much admired by our bard, will be 
found at the bottom of p. 141. E. 

t This song begins, 

" Where are the joys I hae met in the morning?" B. 



LETTERS. 



135 



Todlin hame. Urban! mentioned an idea of his, 
Which has long been mine ; that this air is highly sus- 
ceptible of pathos ; accordingly, you will soon hear him 
at your concert try it to a song of mine in the Museum ; 
Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon. One song more 
and I have done : Auld lung syne. The air is but 
mediocre; but t lie following song, the old song of the 
olden times, and which has never been in print, nor 
even in manuscript, until I took it down from an old 
man's singing, is enough to recommend any air.* 

AULD LANG SYNE. 

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 
And never brought to min' ? 

See Poems, p. 92 . 

Now, I suppose I have tired your patience fairly. 
You must, after all is over, have a number of ballads, 
nroperly so called. Gill Morice, Tranent Muir, 
M'Phersoris Farewell, Battle of Sheriff Muir, or We 
ran and they ran, (1 know the author of this charming 
Dallad, and his history,) Hardiknute, Barbara Allen, 
(I can furnish a finer set of this tune than any that has 
yet appeared,) and besides, do you know that I really 
liave the old tune to which The Cherry and the Sloe 
was sung ; and which is mentioned as a well known 
air in Scotland's Complaint, a book published before 
poor Mary's days. It was then called Tile Banks u' 
Helicon; an old poem which Pinkerton has brought to 
light. You will see all this in Ty tier's history of Scot- 
tish music. The tune, to a learned ear, may have no 
great merit ; but it is a great curiosity. 1 have a good 
many original things of this kind. 



No. XLI1I. 

MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMPSON. 

September, 1793. 
I am happy, my dear Sir, that my ode pleases you so 
much. Your idea " honour's bed," is, though a beau- 
tiful, aMtackneyed idea ; so, if you please, we will let 
the line stand as it is. I have altered the song as fol- 



BANNOCKBURN. 

ROBERT BRUCE'S ADDRESS TO HIS ARMY. 

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, 
Scots, wham Bruce has often led ; 

See Poems, p. 92. 

N. B. I have borrowed the last stanza from the 
common stall edition of Wallace. 

" A false usurper sinks in every foe, 
And liberty returns with every blow." 

A couplet worthy of Homer. Yesterday you had 
enough of my correspondence. The post goes, and my 
head aches miserably. One comfort ! I suffer so 
much, just now, in this world, for last night's joviality, 
that I shall escape scot-free for it in the world to come. 
Amen. 



MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 

12th September, 1793. 
A thousand thanks to you, my dear Sir, for your ob- 
ervations on the list of my songs. I am happy to find 

?our ideas so much in unison with my own, respecting 
he generality of the airs, as well as the verses. About 
tome of them we diil'er, but there is no disputing about 

• This song of the olden time is excellent. It is wor- 
thy of our bard. 



hobby-horses. I shall not fail to profit by the remarks 
you make ; and to re-consider the whole with atten- 
tion. 

Dain'y Davie must be sung two stanzas together, 
and then the chorus : 'tis the proper way. 1 agree 
with you that there may be something of pathos, or 
tenderness at least, in the air of Fee him Father, when 
performed with ieeling : but a tender cast may be 
given almost to any lively air, if you sing it very 
slowly, expressively, and with serious words. I am, 
however, clearly and invariably for retaining the 
cheerful tunes joined to their own humorous verses, 
wherever the verses are passable. Put the sweet song 
for Fee him Father, which you began about the back 
of miujiight, I will publish as an additional one. Mr. 
James Balfour, the king of good fellows, and the best 
singer of the lively Scottish ballads that ever existed, 
has charmed thousands of companies with Fee hh 
Father, and with Todlin hame also, to the old won" 
which never should be disunited from either of ti n 
airs--Some Bacchanals 1 would wish to discard. JM 
lets a' to the bridal, for instance, is so coarse and^H 
gar, that 1 think it tit only to be sung in a compa^^H 
drunken colliers; an d Saw ye my Father? appear* to 
me both indelicate and silly. 

One word more with regard to your heroic ode. £ 
think, with great deference to the poet, that a prudent 

general would avoid saying any thing to his soldiers 

which would tend to make death more frightfu^^H 
it is. Gory presents a disagreeable image to the ^^T 
and to tell them " Welcome to your gory bed," 
rather a discouraging address, notwitiistandin 
alternative which follows. I have shown the sol 
three friends of excellent taste, and each of thei 
jected to this line, which emboldens me to use the 
dom of bringing it again under your notice. 1 w 
suggest, 

" Now prepare for honour's bed, 
Or for glorious victorie." 



iest 
ed. 

5 



I than 
miurt, 

would 



No. XLV. 

MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

September, 1793. 
"Who shall decide when doctors disagree 1" My 
ode pleases me so much that I cannot alter it. Your 
proposed alterations would, in my opinion, make it 
tame. I am exceedingly obliged to you for putting me 
on reconsidering it : as I think 1 have much improved 
it. Instead of "soger! hero!" I will have it " Cale- 
donian 1 on wi' me !" 

I have scrutinized it over and over; and to the world 
some way or other it shall go as it is. At the same 
time it will not in the least hurt me, should you leave 
it out altogether, and adhere to your first intention of 
adopting Logan's verses.* 

* Mr. Thomson has very properly adopted this song 
(if it may be so called) as the bard presented it to him. 
He has attached it to the air of Lewie Gordon, and 
perhaps among the existing airs he could not find a 
better ; but the poetry is suited to a much higher strain 
of music, and may employ the genius of some Scottish 
Handel, if any such should in future arise. The reader 
will have observed, that Burns adopted the alterations 
proposed by his friend and correspondent in former in- 
stances, with great readiness : perhaps, indeed, on all 
indifferent occasions. In the present, instance, how- 
ever, he rejected them, though repeatedly urged, with 
determined resolution. With every respect for the 
judgment of Mr. Thomson and his friends, we may be 
satisfied that he did so. He, who in preparing for an 
engagement, attempts to withdraw his imagination 
from images of death, will probably have but imperfect 



136 



LETTERS. 



1 have finished my song to Sato ye my Father ! and 
in English, as you will see. That there is a syllable 
too much for the expi ession of the air, is true ; but al- 
low me to say, that the mere dividing of a dotted croch- 
et into a crochet and a quaver, is not a great matter : 
however, in that I have no pretensions to cope in judg- 
ment with you. Of the poetry I speak with confidence ; 
but the music is a business where I hint my ideas with 
the utmost diffidence. 

The old verses nave merit, though unequal, and are 
popular : my advice is, to set the air to the old words, 
and let mine follow as English verses. Here they are ; 

FAIR JENNY. 

See p. 134. 

Tune — " Saw ye my Father." 

o Where are the joys I have met in the morning, 
mThat danc'd to the lark's early song ? 

See Poems, p. 92. 

■■Ldieu, my dear Sir ! the post goes, so I shall defer 
some other remarks until inure leisure. 

No. XL VI. 
MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

September, 1793. 
Thave been turning over some volumes of songs, to 
^Hfverses whose measures would suit the airs, for 
Which you have allotted me to find English songs. 

H BF or Miiirlnnil Willie, you have, in Ramsay's Tea- 
Hc, an excellent song, beginning, " Ah! why those 

Brccess, and is not fitted to stand in the ranks of battle, 
where the liberties of a kingdom are at issue. Of such 
men the conquerors of Bannockburn were not compos- 
ed. Bruce's troops were inured to war, and familiar 
with all its sufferings and dangers. On the eve of that 
memorable day, their spirits were, without doubt, 
wound up to a pitch of enthusiasm, suited to the occa- 
sion ; a pitch of enthusiasm, at which danger becomes 
attractive, and the most terrific forms of death are no 
longer terrible. Such a strain of sentiment, this heroic 
" welcome" may be supposed well calculated to ele- 
vate— to raise their hearts high above fear, and to 
nerve their arms to the utmost pitch of mortal exer- 
tion. These observations might be illustrated and sup- 
ported by a reference to that martial poetry of all na- 
tions, from the spirit-stiring strains of Tyrtsus, to the 
war-song of General Wolfe. Mr. Thompson's obser- 
vation, that " Welcome to yourgory bed, is a discour- 
aging address," seems not sufficiently considered, Per- 
haps, indeed, it may be admitted, that the term gory 
is somewhat objectionable, not on account of its pre- 
senting a frightful, but a disagreeable image to the 
mind. But a great poet uttering his conceptions on an 
interesting occasion, seeks always to present a picture 
that is vivid, and is uniformly disposed to sacrifice the 
delicacies of taste on the altar of the imagination. 
And it is the privilege of superioi genius, by producing 
a new association, to elevate expressions that 
originally low, and thus to triumph over the defi 
of language. In how many instances might this be. 
exemplified from the works of our immortal Shakts- 

peare •• 

" Who would fardels bear, 
To groan and sweat under a Weary life : — ■ 

When he himself might his quietus make 
Withaifwe bodkin !" 

were easy to enlarge, but to suggest such reflec- 
tions is probably sufficient. 



tears in Nelly's eyes ?" As for The Collier't Dochttr 
take the following old Bacchanal. 

Deluded swain, the pleasure 
The fickle Fair can give thee, 

See Poems, p. 92 

The faulty line in Logan-Water, I mend thus : 

'• How can your flinty hearts enjoy, 
The widow's tear, the orphan's cry V 

The song otherwise will pass. As to M'Gregoira 
RuaRuth, you will see a song of mine to it, with a 
set of the air superior to yours, in the Museum, vol. ii. 
p. lal. Tne song begins, 

" Raving winds around her blowing," 

Your Irish airs are pretty, but they are down- 
right Irish. I f they were like the Banks of Banna, 
for instance, though really Irish, yet in the Scottish 
taste, you might adopt them. (Since you are so fond of 
Irish music, what say you to twenty-five of them in an 
additional number .' We could easily find this quanti- 
ty of Charming airs: I will take care that you shali 
not want snugs ; and I assure you that you would find 
it the most saleable of the whole. Jf you do not ap- 
prove of Roxfs Wife, for the music's sake, we shall not 
it it. Veil take the wars, is a charming song ; so 
is, Saw ye my Peggy 7 There's na luck about the house 
well deserves a place. 1 cannot say that, O'er the 
hills and far awa , strikes me as equal to your selection . 
This is nn mine ain house, is a great favourite air of 
mine: and if you will send me your set of it, I will 
task my muse to her highest effort. What is your opin 
ion oLI have laid a Henin in sawtl 1 like it much. 
Your Jacobite airs are pretty; and there are many 
others of the same kind, pretty ; but you have not 
room for them. Vou cannot, I think, insert Fie, let 
us a' to the bridal to any other words than its own. 

What pleases me, as simple and naive, disgusts you 
as ludicrous and low. For this reason, Fie, giee me 
my cogie, sirs — Fie, let us a' to the bridal, with several 
others of that cast, are to me highly pleasing ; while, 
Saw ye my Fa: her, or Sam ye my Mother; delights 
me with its descriptive simple pathos. Thus my song, 
Ken ye what Meg o' the M 11 has gotten ? pleases my- 
self so much that I cannot try my hand at another sons 
to the air ; so I shall not attempt it. I know you will 
laugh at all this ; but, " Ilka man wears his belt his ain 
gait." 



MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

October, 1793. 
Your last letter, my dear Thomson, was indeed 
laden with heavy news. Alas, poor Erskine I* The 
recollection that he was a coadjutor in your publica- 
tion, has till now scared me from writing to you, or 
turning my thoughts on composing for you. 

I am pleased that yon are reconciled to the air of the 
Qw ',-..■/'»- Ii'//', ; though, by the by, an old Highland 
gentleman, and a deep antiquarian, tells me it i3 a 
liaelic air, and known by the name of Leiger 'm choss. 
The following verses, 1 hope, will please you as an 
English song to the air. 



Thine am I, my faithful fair, 
'i'hine my lovely Nancy ; 



See Poems, 



Your objection to the En-dish song I proposed foi 
John Andmson inyjo, is eel tainly just. The following 
is by an old acquaintance of mine, and I think lias 
merit. '] lie snug was never in print, which 1 think is 

* The Honourable A. Erskine, brother to Lord Kelly, 
whose melancholy death Mr. Thomson had communi- 
cated in an excellent letter, which he has suppressed 



LETTERS. 



J37 



■o much iu your favour. The more original good poe- 
try your collection contains, it certainly has so much 
the more merit. 



BY GAVIN TURNBULL. 

O, condescend, dear charming maid, 
My wretched state to view ; 

A tender swain to love betray'd, 
And sad despair, by you. 

While here, all melancholy, 

My passion I deplore, 
Yet, urged by stern resistless fate 

I love thee more and more. 

I heard of love, and with disdain, 
The urchin's power denied ; 

I laugh'd at every lover's pain, 
And mock'd them when they sigh'd. 

But how my state is alter'd ! 

Those happy days are o'er ; 
For all thy unrelenting hate, 

1 love thee more and more. 
O, yield, illustrious beauty, yield, 

No longer let me mourn ; 
And though victorious in the field, 

Thy captive do not scorn. 

Let generous pity warm th 

My wonted peace restore ; 
And, grateful, I shall bless thee still, 

And love thee more and more. 



The following address of Turnbull's to the Nightin- 
gale, will suit as an English song to the air, There was 
a lass and she was J air. By the by, Tun. bull has a 
great many songs in MS. which I can command, if 
you like his manner. Possibly, as he is an old friend 
of mine, 1 may be prejudiced in his favour, but 1 like 
some of his pieces vei y much. 



THE NIGHTINGALE. 
BY G. TURNBULL. 

Thou sweetest minstrel of the grove, 
That ever tried the plaintive strain, 

Awake thy tender tale of love, 

And soothe a poor forsaken swain. 

For though the muses deign to aid, 

And teach him smoothly to complain, 
Yet Delia, charming cruel maid, 

Is deaf to her forsaken swain. 
All day, with fashion's gaudy sons, 

In sport she wanders o'er the plain : 
Their tales approves, and still she shuns 

The notes of her forsaken swain. 

When evening shades obscure the sky, 
And bring the solemn hours again, 

Begin, sweet bird, thy melody, 
And soothe a poor forsaken swain. 



I shall Just transcribe another ef Turnbull's which 
would go charmingly to Lewie Cordon. 



LAURA. 
BY G. TURNBULL. 



Let me wander where I will, 
By shady wood or winding rill ; 



Where the sweetest May-born flowers 
Paint the meadows, deck the bowers; 
Where the linnet's early song 
Echoes sweet the woods among; 
Let me wander where I will, 
Laura haunts my fancy still. 

If at rosy dawn I chuse, 

To indulge the smiling muse ; 

If I court some cool retreat, 

To avoid the noon-tide heat : 

If beneath the moon's pale ray, 

Through unfrequented wilds I stray, 

Let me wander where I will, 

Laura haunts my fancy still. 

When at night the drowsy god 
Waves his sleep-compelling rod, 
And to fancy's wakeful eyes 
Bids celestial visions rise ; 
While with boundless joy I rove, 
Through the fairyland of love; 
Let me wander where 1 will, 
Laura haunts my fancy still. 



4 



The rest of your letter I shall answer at some other 
opportunity. 



MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 

1th November, 1793. 
MY GOOD SIR, 

After so long a silence, it gave me peculiar pleasurft, 
to recognize your well-known hand, for I had begun to 
be apprehensive that all was not well with you. I am 
happy to find, however, that your silence did not pro- 
ceed from that cause, and that you have got among the 
ballads once more. 

I have to thank you for your English song to Leiger 
'm choss, which I think extremely good, although the 
colouring J s warm. Your friend Mr. Turnbull's songs 
have, doubtless considerable merit ; and as you have 
the command of his manuscripts, I hope you will find 
out some that will answer, as English songs, to the airs 
yet unprovided. 



No. XL1X. 
MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

December, 1793. 
Tell me how you like the following verses to the tune 
of Jo Janet. 

Husband, husband, cease your strife, 
Nor longer idly rave, Sir ; 

See Poems, p. 93. 



Wilt thou be my dearie ? 

When sorrow wrings thy gentle heart, 

Wilt thou let me cheer thee ? 

See Poems, p. 110. 



No. L. 
MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 

Edinburgh, nth April, 1794. 
MY DEAR SIR, 

Owing to the distress of our friend for the loss of his 
child, at the time of his receiving your admirable but 



138 



LETTERS. 



melancholy letter, 1 had not an opportunity, till lately, 
of perusing it.* How sorry 1 am to find Bums saying, 
«' Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased !" while 
he is delighting others from one end of the island to the 
other. Like the hypochondriac who went to consult a 
physician upon his case— Go, says the doctor, and see 
the famous Carlini, who keeps all Pans in good hu- 
mour. Alas! Sir, replied the patient, 1 am that un- 
happy Carlini I 

Your plan for our meeting together pleases me 
greatly, and I trust that oy some means or other it will 
soon take place ; hut your Bacchanalian challenge 
almost frightens me, for 1 am a miserable weak drinker. 

Allan is much gratified by your good opinion of his 
talents. He has just begun a sketch from your Cnt- 
tn's Saturday Nizht. and if it pleases himself in the 
design, he will probably etch or engrave it. In sub- 
ects of the pastoral and humorous kind, he IB perhaps 
jnrivallcd by any artist living. He fails a little in 
jriving beauty and grace to his females, and his colour- 
ing is sombre, otherwise his paintings and drawings 
■would be in greater request. 

■Hike the music of the Sutor's Dnchtcr, and will con- 
sider whether it shall be added to the last volume ; your 
■s to it are pretty: but your humorous English 
Hfc, to suit Jo Janet, is inimitable. What think you 
Of the air, Wukinavnla of Edinburgh'! It has al- 
ways struck me as a modern imitation but it is said to 
Be Oswald's, and is so much liked .that I believe I must 
include it. The verses are little better than namby 
f)/tmby. Do you consider it worth a stanza or two 1 



MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

May, 1794. 
MY DEAR SIR, 

I return you the plates, with which I am highly 
pleased ; I would humbly propose instead of the youn- 
ker knitting stockings, to put a stock and horn into 
his hands. A friend of mine, who is positively the 
ablest judge on the subject 1 have ever met with, and 
though an unknown, is yet a superior artist with the 
Burin, is quite charmed with Allan's manner. 1 got 
him a peep at the Gen'le Shepherd ; and he prom 
ces Allan a most original artist of great excellence. 

For my part, 1 look on Mr. Allan's chusing my fa- 
vorite poem for his subject, to be one of the highest 
compliments I have ever received. 

1 am quite vexed at Pleyel's being cooped up ir 
France, as it will put an entire stop to our work. Now, 
and for six or seven months, I shall bequie in sons. 
as you shall see by and by. I got an air, pretty enough, 
composed by Lady Elizabeth Heron, of Heron, which 
she calls The Banks of Cree. Cree is a beautiful ro- 
mantic stream ; and as her Ladyship is a particular 
friend of mine, I have written the following song to it. 

BANKS OF CREE. 

Here is the glen, and here the bower ; 
All underneath the birchen shade : 

See Poems, p. 93. 



No. HI. 
MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

July, 1794. 
Is there no news yet of Pleyel ? Or is your work to 
be at a dead stop, until the allies set our modern Or- 
pheus at liberty from the savage thraldom of demo- 
cratic discord* 1 Alas the day 1 and wo is me I That 



auspicious period pregnant with the happiness of nn> 
lions.* — ****** 

1 have presented a copy of your songs to the daugh- 
ter of a much-valued and much honoured friend o. 
irhie, Mr. Graham, of Fintry. 1 wrote on the blank 
side of the title-page the following address to the young 
lady. 

Here where the Scottish muse immortal lives 
In sacred strains and tuneful numbers join'd, 

See Poems, p. 93 



MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS 

Edinburgh, Villi August, 179-i 
MY DEAR SIR, 

I owe you an rpology for having so long delayed to 
acknowledge the favour of your last. 1 fear it will be 
as you say, 1 shall have no more songs from tleyel till 
Frauce and we are friends , but nevertheless, I am 
very desirous to be prepa led with the poetry ; and a9 
the season approaches in which your muse of Colia 
visits you, I trust 1 Khali as lormerly, be frequently 
gratified with the result of your amorous and tendei 
iuterv.ews 1 



MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

30</i August, 1794. 

The last evening, as 1 was straying out, and think" 
iug of, O'er tin: hills a, id far away, I spun the follow 
u.g stanzas for it ; but whether my spinning will de 
serve to be laid up in store, like the precious thread ol 
the silk-worm, or brushed to the devil, like the vile 
manufacture of the spider, i leave, my dear .Sir, to your 
usual candid criticism. I was pleased with several 
lines iu its hist : but 1 own that now it appears rather 
a flimsy business. 

This is just a hasty sketch, until 1 see whether it be 
worth a critique. Vv e have many sailor songs, but as 
far as 1 at present recollect, they are mostly the effu- 
sions of the jovial sailor, not the waitings of hi3 love- 
lorn mistress. 1 must here make one sweet exception 
— Sweei Annie J, an ihe eeu-beacli came. Now forth; 

song. 

ON THE SEAS AND FAR AWAY. 

How can my poor heart be glad, 
When absent from my sailor lad ? 

See Poems, p. 94. 



I give you leave to 
'iirit of (. hristian met 



buse this song, but do it in the 



* A letter to Mr. Cunninghar 
neral Correspondence. 



No. CL. of the Ge- 



MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS 

Edinburgh, 16th September, 1794. 
MY DEAR SIR, 

You have anticipated my opinion of On the seas ant 
faraway ; 1 do not think it one of your very happ> 
productions, though it certainly contains stanaas that 
are worthy of all acceptation. 

The second is the least to my liking, particularly 
" Bullets, spare my only joy !" Confound the bullets I 
K might, perhaps be objected to the third verse, " A 
the starless midnight hour," that it has too much gran- 
deur of imagery, and that greater simplicity of thought 

* A portion of this letter has been left out fo? rea- 
sons that wili easily be imagined 



LETTERS. 



139 



would have better suited the character of a sailor's 
sweetheart. The tune, it must be remembered, is of the 
brisk, cheerful kind. Upon the whole, therefore, in my 
humble opinion, ihe son; would be better adapted to 
the time, if it consisted only of the first and last 
versee witn the choruses. 



MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

September, 1794. 
I shall withdraw my, O'er the seas and far away, al- 
together: it is unequal, and unworthy the work. 
Making a poem is like begetting a son : you cannot 
know whether you have a wise man or a fool, until 
you produce him to the world to try him. 

For that reason I send you the offspring of my brain, 
abortions and all ; and, as such, pray look over them, 
and forgive them, and burn* them. 1 am flattered at 
your adopting Ca' the yowcs to the hiowes, as it was 
owing to me that ever it saw the light. About seven 
years ago 1 was well acquainted with a worthy little 
fellow of a clergyman, a Mr.Clunie, who sung it charm- 
ingly ; and, at my request, Mr. Clarke took it down 
from his singing. When 1 gave it to Johnson, I added 
some stanzas to the song and mended others, but still 
it will not do for you. In a solitary stroll which 1 took 
to-day, I tried my hand on a few pastoral lines, follow- 
ing up the idea of the chorus, which 1 would preserve. 
Here it is, with all its crudities and imperfections on 
its head. 

CHORUS. 



Ca' the yowes to the knowes, 
Ca' them where the heather grows. 

See Poems, p. 91. 

shall give you my opinion of your other newly 
adopted songs my first scribbling fit. 



MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMPSON. 

September, 1794. 
Do you know a blackguard Irish song called Onagh's 
Water-fall ? The air is charming, and 1 have often re- 
gretted the want of decent verses to it. it is too much 
at least for my humble rustic muse, 1o expect that 
every effort of hers shall have merit ; still I think that 
it is better to have mediocre verses to i\ favourite air, 
than none at all. Ob this principle I have all along 
proceeded in the Scots Musical Museum; and as that 
publication is at its last volume, 1 intend the following 
song to the air above-mentioned for that work. 

If it does not suit you as an editor, you maybe pleas- 
ed to have verses to it that you can sing before ladies. 

SHE SAYS SHE LO'ES ME BEST OF A'. 

Sae flaxen were her ringlets, 
Her eye-brows of a darker hue, 

See Poems, p. 94 . 

Not to compare small things with great, my taste in 
music is like the rmgluy Frederick of 1 russia's taste in 
painting ; we are told that lie frequently admired what 
the connoisseurs decried, and always without any hy- 
pocrisy confessed his admiration. I am sensible that my 
taste in music must be inelegant and vulgar, because 

* This Virgilian order of the poet should, I think, 
be disobeyed with respect to the song in question, the 
second stanza excepted. Note by Mr. Thomson. 

Doctors differ. The objectiou to the second stanza 
does not strike the Editor. E. 



people of undisputed and cultivated taste can find no 
merit in my favourite tunes. Still, because 1 am 
cheaply pleased, is that any reason why I should deny 
myself that pleasure ? Many of our strathspeys, 
ancient and modern, give me most exquisite en- 
joyment, where you and other judges would probably 
be showing disgust. For instance, I am jusi 3 )v mak- 
ing verses for Ruthiemurchie's /fori', an air which puts 
me in raptures . and, in fact, unless 1 be pleased with 
the tune, 1 never can make verses to it. Here I have 
Clarke on my side who is a judge that I will pit against 
any of you. Rothiemurchie, he says, is an air both 
original and beautiful : and on his recommendation I 
have taken the first part of the tune for a chorus, and 
the fourth or last part for the song. I am but two 
stanzas deep in the work, and possibly you may think, 
and justly, that the poetry is as little worth your at- 
tention as the music* 



I have begun anew, Let mem this ae night. Do you 
think that we ought to retain the old chorus " 
think we must retain both the old chorus and t 
first stanza of the old song. I do not altogether ldS 
the third line of the first stanza, but cannot alter ijH 
please myself. I am just three stanzas deep in, it* 
Would you have the de'inument to be successful or 
otherwise? Should she " let him in," or not? ffl 



ou 

hi 



Did you not once propose The Sow's Tail, to Geor- 
die, as an air for your work ? I am quite diverted 
with it ; but I acknowledge that is no mark of its real 
excellence. I once set about verses for it, which 1 
meant to be in the alternate way of a lover and his 
mistress chanting together. I have not the pleasure 
of knowing Mrs. Thomson's Christian name, and 
yours 1 am afraid is rather burlesque for sentiment, 
else I had meant to have made you the hero and 
heroine of the little piece. 

How do you like the following epigram, which \£ 
wrote the other day on a lovely young girl's recovery^ 
from a fever? Doctor Maxwell was the physician 
who seemingly saved her from the gi ave ; and to him 
I address the following. 

TO DR. MAXWELL, 

On Miss Jessy Staig's Recovery. 

Maxwell, if merit here you crave, 

That merit I dpny : 
Y ju save fair Jessy from the grave ?— 

An an^el could not die, 

God grant you patience with this stupid epistle ! 



MR THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 

I perceive the sprightly muse is now attendant upor 
her favourite poet, whose wood-notes wild are becom- 
ing as enchanting as ever. S'le says she lo'es me best 
of a', is one of the pleasantest table-songs 1 have seen, 
and henceforth shall be mine when the so.ig is going 
round. I'll give Cunningham a copy ; he can more 
powerfully proclaim its merit. I am far from under- 
valuing your taste for the strathspey music; on the 
contrary, 1 think it highly animating and agreeable, 
and that some of the strathspeys, when graced with 
such verses as yours, will make very pleasing songs 
in the same way that rough Christians are tempered 
and softened by' lovely woman ; without whom, you 
know, they had been brutes. 

I am clear for having the Sow's Tail, particularly 
as your proposed verses to it are so extremely promis- 
ing. Geordie, as you observe, is a name only fit for 
burlesque composition Mrs. Thompson's name (Kath- 
erine) is not at all poetical. Retain Jeanie therefore, 
and make the other Jamie, or any other that sound* 
agreeably. 

* In the original, follow here two stanzas of a song 
beginning " Lassie, wi' the lint-white lockB." 



140 



LETTERS. 



Your Ca' the ewes is a precious little morceau. In- 
deed, I am perfectly astonished and charmed with the 
endless variety of your fancy. Here let me ask you, 
whether you never seriously turned your thoughts 
upon dramatic writing ? That is a field worthy of 
your genius, in which it might shine forth in all its 
splendor. One or two successful pieces upon the 
London stage would make your fortune. The rage at 
present is for musical dramas : few or none of those 
Which have appeared since the Duenna, possesses 
much poetical merit : there is little in the conduct of 
the fable, or in the dialogue, to interest the audience. 
They are chiefly vehicles for music and pageantry. I 
flunk you might produce a comic opera in three acts, 
Which would live by the poetry, at the same time that 
Jt would be proper to take every assistance from her 
tuneful sister. Part of the songs, of course, would be 
to our favourite .Scottish airs : the rest might be left 
to the London composer — Storace for Drury-lane, or 
Shield for Covent Garden : both of them very able and 
popular musicians. I believe that interest and man- 
euvring are often necessary to have a drama brought 
"i; so it may be with the namby pamby tribe of 

very scribblers ; but were you to address Mr. 

eridan himself by letter, and send him a dramatic 
I am persuaded he would, for the honour of 
, give it a fair and candid trial. Excuse me 

| Obtruding these hints upon your consideration.* 



No. LIX. 

MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 

Edinburgh, Ulh October, 1791. 

BJy The last eight days have been devoted to the re-ex- 
Ewnination of the Scottish collections. I have read, 
[fland sung, and fiddled, and considered, till I am half 

blind and wholly stupid. The few airs I have added 

are enclosed. 

Peter Pindar has at length sent me all the songs I 
expected from him, which are in general elegant and 
beautiful. Have you heard of a London collection of 
Scottish airs and songs, just published by Mr. Ritson, 
an Englishmen 1 I shall send you a copy. His intro- 
ductory essay on the subject is curious and evinces 
great reading and research, but does not decide the 
question as to the origin of our melodies ; though lie 
shows clearly that Mr. Tytler, in his ingenious disser 
tation. has adduced no sort of proof of the 1 ypothesis 
he wished to establish : and that his classification of 
the airs according to the eras, when they were com- 
posed, is mere fancy and conjecture. On John 1 inker- 
ton, Esq. he has no mercy ; but consigns him to dam- 
nation ! He snarls at my publication, on the score of 
Pindar being engaged to 'write some songs for it ; un- 
candidly and unjostly leaving it to be inferred, that 
vhe songs of Scottish writers had been sent a packing 
to make room for Peter's! Of you he speaks with 
tome respect, but gives you a passing hit or two, for 
daring to dress up a little, some old foolish songs for 
the Museum. His sets of the Scottish airs, are taken, 
he says, from the oldest collections and best authori- 
ties : many of them, however, have such a strange as- 
pect, and are so unlike the sets which are sung by 
every person of taste, old or young, in town or coun- 
try, that we can scarcely recognize the features of our 
favourites. By going to the oldest collections of our 
music, it does not follow that we find the melodies in 
their original state. These melodies had been pre- 
served, we know not. how long, by oral communica- 
tion, before being collected and printed : and as differ- 
ent persons sing the same air very differently, accord- 
ing to their accurate or confused recollections of it, so 
even supposing the first collectors to have possessed 
the industry, the taste and discernment to choose the 
best they could hear, (which is far from certain,) still 
it must evidently be a chance, whether the collections 
exhibit any of the melodies in the state they were first 

* Our bard had before received the same advice, 
and certainly took it so far into consideration as to 
have cast about for a subject. E. 



composed. In selecting the melodies for -.17 awn col- 
lection, I have been as much guided by the living as 
by the dead. Where these differed, I preferred the 
sets that appeared to me the most simple and beauti- 
ful, and the most generally approved : and without 
meaning any compliment to my own capability of 
choosing, or speaking of the pains I have taken, I 
flatter myself that my sets will be found equally freer) 
from vulgar errors on the one hand, and affected 
graces on uie other. 



No. LX. 
MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

10th October, 1794. 



MY DEAR FRIEND, 

By this morning's post 1 have your list, and, in gene- 
ral, I highly approve of it. I shall, at more leisure give 
you a critique on the whole. Clarke goes to your own 
town by' to-day's fly, and I wish you would call on him 
and take his opinion in general : you know his taste is 
a standard. He will return here* again hi a week or 
two : so please do not miss asking for him. One thing 
I hope he will do, persuade you to adopt my favourite 
Cra^ir-burn-wool, in your selection ; it is as great a 
favourite of his as of mine. The lady on whom it was 
made, is one of the finest women in Scotland ; and in 
fact {entre nous) is in a manner to me, what Sterne's 
Eliza was to him — a mistress, or friend, or what you 
will in the guileless simplicity of Platonic love. (Now 
don't put any of your squinting constructions on this, 
or have any clish-maclaver about it among our ac- 
quaintances.) I assure you that to my lovely friend 
you are indebted for many of your best songs of mine. 
Po you think that the sober gin-horse routine of exist- 
ence, could inspire a man with life, and love, nnd 
joy — could fire him with enthusiasm, or melt him with 
pathos, equal to the genius of your book ? No! no! — 
Whenever I want to be more than ordinary in son" ; 
to be in some degree equal to your diviner airs ; "do 
you imagine that 1 fast and pray for the celestial ema- 
nation ? Tom an coti'rarie ! 1 have a glorious recipe ; 
the very one that for his own use was invented by the 
divinity of healing and poetry, when erst he piped to the 
Hocks of Ulraetus. I put myself in a regimen of ad- 
miring a fine woman ; and in proportion to the adora- 
hility of her charms, in the proportion you are delight- 
ed with my verses. The lightning of her eye is the 
godhead of Parnassus ; and the witchery of her smile. 
the divinity of Helicon ! 

To descend to business ; if yon like my idea of IVJtea 
she cam bm she babbit, the following stanzas of mine, 
altered a little from what they were formerly when set 
to another air, may perhaps do instead of worse stan- 



SAW YE MY PHELY. 
O, saw ye my dear, my Phely ? 

Poems, p. 95. 



O, saw ye my dear, my Phely? 



Now for a few miscellaneous remarks. The Posie 
(in the Museum) is my composition ; the air was taken 
down from Mrs. Burn's voice.* It is well known in 
the West Country, but the old words are trash. By 
the by, take a look at the tune again, and tell me if you 
do not think it is the original from which Roslin Castle 
is composed. The second part in particular, for the 
first two oi three bars, is exactly the old air. Stratk- 
alten's Lament, is mine : the music is by our right 
trusty and deservedly well-beloved Allan Masterton. 
Donochl-Head is not mine; 1 would give ten pound* 
it were. It appeared first in the Edinburgh Herald; 

* The Posic will be found in the Poems, p. 109. This, 
and the other poems of which he speaks, had appeared 
in Johnson's Museum, and Mr. T. had inquired wheth- 
er they were our bard's 



LETTERS. 



141 



ind came to the editor of th,i* paper with the Newcas- 
tle post-mark on it. * WTiia \e o'er the lave o't is mine : 
the music is said to he by John Bruce, a celebrated 
Yiolin-player in Dumfries," ahout 'he beginning of this 
century. This I know, Bruce, who was an honest 
man, though a redwud Highlandman, constantly claim- 
ed it ; and by all the oldest musical people here, is be- 
lieved, to be the author of it. 

Andrew and his cutty Gun. The song to which this 
i3set in the Museum is mine, and was composed on 
Miss Euphemia Murray, of Lintrose, commonly and 
deservedly called the Flower of Str'athmore. 

How long and dreay is the night ! I met with some 
4uch words in a collection of songs somewhere, which 
I altered and enlarged ; and to please you, and to suit 
your favourite air, 1 have taken a stride ot two across 
my room, and have arranged it anew, as you will find 
oil the other page. 

SONG. 

How long and dreary is the night, 
When I am frae my dearie ! 

See Poems, p. 93. 

Tell me how you like this. I differ from your idea 
of the expressions cf the tune. There is, to me a great 
deal of tenderness in it. You cannot, in ray opinion, 
dispense with a bass to your addenda airs. A lady of 
my acquaintance, a noted performer, plays and sings 
atthe same time so charmingly, that 1 shall never bear 
to see any of her songs sent into the world, as naked 
as Mr. What-d'ye-call-um has done in his London 
collection. \ 

These English songs gravel me to death. I have 
not that command of the language that 1 have of my 
native tongue. 1 hove been at Duncan Gray, to dress 
it in English, but all 1 can do is deplorably stupid. For 
instance ; 

* The reader will be curious to see this poem, so 
highly praised by Burns. Here it is. 

Keen blaws the wind o'er Donocht-Head, (1) 

The snaw drives snelly thro' the dale ; 
The Gaber-lunzie tirls my sneck, 

And3hivering tells his waefu' tale: 
" Cauld is the night, O let me in, I 

And dinna let your minstrel fa' ; 
And dinna let his winding sheet, 

Be naething but a wreath o' snaw. 

" FuX ninety winters hae I seen, 

And piped where gor-cocks whirring flew ; 
And mony a day I've danced, I ween, 

To lilts which from my drone I blew." 
My Eppie waked and soon she cried, 

' Get up, guidman, and let him in ; 
For weel ye keen the winter night 

Was short when he began his din.' 

My Eppie's voice O wow it's sweet, 

Even tho' she ban? and scaulds a wee ; 
But when it's tuned to sorrow's tale, 

O, haith, it's doubly dear to me ; 
Come in, auld carl, I'll steer my fire, 

I'll make it bleez.e a bonnie flame ; 
Your blind is thin, ye've tint the gate, 

Ye should nae stray so far frae hame. 

M Nae hame have I," the minstrel said, 
" Sad party-strife o'erturn'd my ha 1 ; 

And weeping at' the eve of life, 
1 wandered thro' a wreath o' snaw." 



This affecting poem is apparently incomplete 
author need not be ashamed to own himself, 
•vorthy of Burns, or of Macuiel. E. 

(() A mouDtain in the North. 
\ Mr. Ritson. 



The 
It is 



Let not woman e'er complain 
Of inconstancy in love ; 

See Poems, p. 95. 

Since the above. I have b?en out in the country, tak- 
ing a dinner with a friend, where I met with \he lady 
whom I mentioned in the second page in this odds- 
and-endsof a letter. As usual I got into song: and 
returning home I composed the following : 

THE LOVER'S MORNING SALUTE TO HIS 
MISTRESS. 

Sleep'st thou or wak'st thou, fairest creature ; 
Rosy morn now lifts his eye,*t 

See Poems, p. 95 

If you honour my verses by setting the air to them, 
will vamp up the old song, and make it English 
enough to be understood. 

I enclose you a musical curiosity, an East India ainE 
which you would swear was a Scottish one. I k.nojfl 
the authenticity of it, as the gentleman who brought^ 
■, is a particular acquaintance of mine. DoM 
serve me the copy I send you, as it is the only on 39 
have. Clarke has set a bass to it, and 1 intend puttffiM 
to the Musical Museum. Here follow the versffifl 
intend for it. 

THE AULD MAN. 

But lately seen in gladsome green, 
The woods rejoic'd the day. 

See Poems, p. 96. fa 

I would be obliged to you if you would procure nan 
sight of Ritson's collection of English songs, whicH, 
you mention in your letter. 1 will thank you for ano- 
ther information, and that as speedily as you please : 
hether this miserable drawling hotchpotch epistle 
has not completed tired vou of my correspondence 1 



No. LXI. 
MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 

Edinburgh, 'Tlth October, 1794. 
I am sensible, my dear friend, that a genuine poet 
can no more exist without his mistress thau his meat. 
1 wisli 1 knew the adorable she whose bright eyes and 
witching smiles have so often enraptured the Scottish 
bard I that I might drink her sweet health when the 
toast is going round. Crajii-burn-ir-uod , must cer- 
tainly be adopted into my family, since she is the ob- 
ject of the song; but in the name of decency I must 
beg a new chorus-verse from you. O to be Lying be- 
yon I thee, dcaiie, is perhaps a consummation to be 
wished, but will not do for singing in the company of 
ladies. The songs in your last will do you lasting credit, 

* From the fifth to the eleventh line of this song 
stood originally thus : 

Now to the sti earning fountain, 

Or up the heathy mountain, 
The hart, hind, and roe, freely wildly-wanton stray ; 

In twining hazel bowers 

His lay the linnet pours , 

The lav'rock, &c. 

t The last eight lines stood originally thus : 

When fare my Chloris parted, 

Sad, cheerless, broken-hearted. [»*> 

The night's gloomy shades, cloudy, dark, o'ercast m.' 

But when she charms my sight, 

In pride of beauty's light ; 

When thro' my very heart 

Her blooming glories dart. 
Tis then, 'tis then, I wake to life, and joy. ft. 



142 



LETTERS. 



and suit the respective airs charmingly. I am per- 
fectly of your opinion with respect to the additional 
airs." The idea of sending them into the world naked 
as they were born was ungenerous. They must all 
be clothed and made decent by our friend Claike. 

I find I am anticipated by the friendly Cunningham 
in sending you Ritson's Scottish collection. Permit 
me, therefore, to present you with his English collec- 
tion, which you will receive by the coach. I do not 
find his historical essay on Scottish song interesting. 
Your anecdotes and miscellaneous remarks will, I am 
sure, be much more so. Allan has just sketched a 
charming design from Maggie Lauder. She is dan- 
cing with such spirit as to electrify the piper, who 
seems almost dancing too, while he is playing with the 
most exquisite glee. I am much inclined to get a 
small copy, and to have it engraved in the style of 
Ritson's prints. 

P. S. Pray what do your anecdotes say concerning 
Maggie Lauder? was she a real personage, and of 
what rank 1 You would surely spier for her if you 

;'d ai Anslruther town. 



MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

November, 1794. 
lany thanks to you, my dear Sir, for your present, 
is a book of the utmost importance to me. 1 have 
Besterday begun my anecdotes, &c. for your work. I 
■ptend drawing it up in the form of a letter to you, 
■rhich will save me from the tedious, dull business of 
Systematic arrangement. Indeed, as all I have to say 
Iponsists of unconnected remarks, anecdotes, scraps of 
Fold songs, &c. it would be impossible to give the work 
a beginning, a middle, or an end, which the critics in- 
sist to be absolutely necessary in a work.* In my last 
I told you my objections to the song you had selected 
for My lodging is un theculd ground. On my visit the 
other day to my fair Chloris (that is the poetic name 
of the lovely goddess of my inspiration) she suggested 
an idea, which I, in my return from the visit, wrought 
into the following song. 

My Chloris, mark how green the groves, 
The primrose banks how fair ; 

See Poems, p. 93. 

How do you like the simplicity and tenderness of 
this pastoral 1 I think it pretty well. 

I like your entering so candidly and so kindly into 
the story of Ma dure Amie. I assure you I was never 
more in earnest in my life, than in the account of that 
affair which I sent you in my last. Conjugal love is a 
passion which I deeply feel, and highly venerate ; but, 
somehow, it does not make such a figure in poesy as 
that other species of the passion, 

" Where love is liberty, and nature law." 

Musically speaking, the first is an instrument of which 
the gamut is scanty and confined, but the tones inex- 
pressibly sweet ; while the last has powers equal to all 
the intellectual modulations of the human soul. Still 
I am a very poet in my enthusiasm of the passion. — 
The welfare and happiness of the beloved object is the 
first and inviolate sentiment that pervades my soul ; 
and whatever pleasures 1 might wish for, or whatever 
might be the raptures they would give me, yet, if they 
interfere with that first principal, it is having these 
pleasures at a dishonest price ; and justice forbids, 
and generosity disdains the purchase 1 * * 

Despairing of my own powers to give you variety 
enough in English songs, 1 have been turning over old 

• It does not appear whether Burns completed these 
anecdotes, &c. Something of the kind (probably the 
rude draughts) was found amongst his papers and 
appears in Appendix No II. Note B. 



collections, to pick out songs, of which the measure U 
something similar to what I want ; and, with a little 
alteration, so as to suit the rhythm of the air exactly, 
to give you them for your work. \V here the songs have 
hitherto been but little noticed, nor have ever been set 
to music, I think the shift a fair one. A song, which, 
under the same first verse, you will find in Ramsay's 
Tea-Table Miscellany, I have cut down for an English 
dress to your JJaindeDacie, as follows: 

SONG. 

Altered, from an old English one. 

It was the charming month of May, 
When all the flowers were fresh and gay, 

See Poems, p. 96. 

You may think meanly of this, but take a look at the 
bombast original, and you will be surprised that 1 have 
made so much of it. 1 have finished my song to RO' 
tfvU murckit '« Rant ; and you have Clarke to consult as 
to the set of the ah- for singing. 

LASSIE WP THE LINT-WHITE LOCKS.* 



Lassie wV the lint-white lochs, 
Bonnie lassie, artless lassie, 

See Poems, p. 96. 

This piece has at least the merit of being a regular 
pastoral: the vernal morn, the summer noon, the au- 
tumnal evening, and the winter night, are regularly 
rounded. Jf you like it, well : if not, I will insert it in 
the Museum. 

I am out of temper that you should set so sweet, so 
tender an air, as Dcil tak the wars, to the foolish old 
verses. You talk of the silliness of Saw ye my father '/ 
By heavens ! the odds is gold to brass ! Resides, the old 
song, though now pretty well modernized into the 
Scottish, language, is originally, and in the early edi- 
tions, afnungling low imitation of the Scottish manner, 
by thft"t genius Tom D'Urfey ; so has no pretensions to 
be a Scottish production. There is a pretty English 
song by Sheridan, in the Duenna, to this air, which is 
out of sight superior to D'Urfey's. It begins, 

" When sable night each drooping plant restoring." 

The air, if I understand the expression of it properly, 
is the very native language of simplicity, tenderness 
and love. I have again gone over my song to the tune 
as follows.! 

Now for my Phiglish song to Nancy's to the green- 
wood, &,~c. 

Farewell thou stream that winding flows 
Around Eliza's dwelling! 

See Poems, p. 97. 

There is an air, The Calrdnnian Hunt's Ddight, to 
which I wrote a song that you will find in Johnson. 

Ye banks and biaes o' b mnie Doon ; this air, I 
think, might find a place among your hundred, as Leas 
says of his knights. Do you know the history of the 

* In some of the MSS. the last stanza of this song 
runs thus : 

And should the howling wint'ry blast 
Disturb my lassie's midnight rest, 
I'll fauld thee to my faithfu' breast, 
And comfort thee my dearie O. 

t See the song in its first and best dress in page 218. 
Our bard remarks upon it, " I could easily throw this 
into an English mould ; but, to my taste, in the simple 
and the tender of the pastoral song, a sprinkling of the 
old Scottish has an inimitable effect." E. 



LETTERS. 



143 



».iv» It Is curious enough. A good many years ago, 
Mr. , T ames Miller, writer in your good town, a gentle- 
man whom possibly you know, was in company with 
our friend Clarke ; and talking of Scottish music, Mil- 
ler expressed an ardent ambition to be able to oocnpOBe 
a Scots air. Mr, Clarke, partly by way of joke, told 
him to keep to the black keys of the harpsichord, and 
preserve some kind of rhythm ; and he would infallibly 
compose a Scots air. Certain it is. that, in a few days, 
Mr. Miller produced the rudiments of an air, which 
Mr. Clarke with some touches and corrections, fashion- 
ed into the tune in question. Ritson, you know, has 
the same story of the black keys; but this account 
which 1 have just given you, Mr. Clarke informed me 
of several years ago. Now to show you how difficult 
it is to trace the origin of our airs, 1 have heard it re- 
peatedly asserted that this was an Irish air; nay, I 
met with an Jrisb gentleman who affirmed he had 
heard it in Ire-land among the old women ; while, on 
the other hand, a Countess informed me, that the first 
person who introduced the air into this country, was a 
baronet's lady of her acquaintance, who took down 
the notes From an itinerant piper in the Isle of Man. 
How difficult then to ascertain the truth respecting our 
poesy and music! I, myself have lately seen a couple 
of ballads sung through'the streets of Dumfries with 
my name at the head of them as the author, though it 
was the first time that i had ever seen them. 

I thank you for admitting Crnzie-burn-wond ; and 
1 snail take care to furnish you with a new chorus. In 
fact the chorus was not my work, but a part of some 
old verses to the air. If 1 can catch myself in a more 
than ordinary propitious moment, 1 shall write a new 
''ragie-bum-wood altogether. My heart is much in 
vne theme. 

I am ashamed, my dear fellow, to make the request; 
'tis dunning your generosity ; but in a moment, when 
I had forgotten whether I was rich or poor, I promised 
Chloris a copy of your songs. It wrings my honest 
pride to write'you this: but an ungracious request is 
doubly so by a tedious apology. To make you some 
amends, as soon as I have extracted the necessary 
information out of them, I will return you Ritson's 
volumes. 

The lady is not a little proud that she is to make so 
distinguished a figure in your collection, and I am not 
a little proud thai 1 have it in my power to please her 
so much. Lucky it is for your patience that my paper 
is done, for when I am in a scribbling humour i know 
not when lo give over. 



MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 

13i7i November, 1794. 
MY GOOD SIR, 

Since receiving your last, I have had another inter- 
view with Mr. Clarke, and a long consultation. He 
thinks the Caledonian Hunt is more Bacchanalian 
than amorous in its nature, and recommends it to you 
lo match the air accordingly. Pray did it ever occur 
to you how peculiarly well the Scottish airs are adapt- 
ed for verses in the form of a dialogue .' 'I he firsi part 
of the air is generally low, and suited for a man's 
voice, and the second part in many instances cannot 
oe sung, at concert pitch, but by a female voice. A 
«ong thus performed makes an agreeab.e variety, but 
few of ours are written in this form : 1 wish you would 
■Jiink of it ir. some of those that remain. The only one 
of the kind you have sent me is admirable, and will 
0« a universal favourite. 

Your verses for Rolhiemurchie are so sweetly pas- 
toral, and your serenade to Chloris, for L)iel lak the 
wars, so passionately tender, that I have sung myself 
Into raptures with them. Your song for My lo-lging 
is on the cold ground, is likewise a diamond of the 
first water ; and 1 am quite dazzled and delighted by 
!t. Some of yoir Chlorises I suppose have flaxen hair, 



for wiis colour ; else we differ 

lint-while 



from your partialit; 

about it ; for I should scarcely conceive a woman 

to be a beauty, on reading that she ha ' 

locks. 

Farewell thou stream that winding flows, I think 
excellent, but it is much too serious to come alter 
Nancy ; at least it would seem an incongruity to pro- 
vide the same air with merry Scottish and melancholy 
.English verses ! The more that the two sets of verses 
resemble each other in their general character, the bet- 
ter. Those you have manufactured for Dainty Davie 
will answer charmingly. 1 am happy to find you have 
begun your anecdotes ! 1 care not how long they be, 
for it is impossible that anything from you i pen can 
be tedious. Let me beseech you not to use ceremony 
in telling me when you wish to present any of your 
friends with the songs : me neAi carrier will bring you 
three copies, and you are as Welcome to twenty as to 
a pinch of snuff, 



No. LXIV. 



MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON 

19th November, 1794 
You see, my dear Sir, what a punclua 
dent I am ; though indeed you may thank yourself 
the tedium of my letters, as you have so flattered 
on my horsemanship with my favourite hobby, anfl 
praised the grace of his ambling so much, that I aB 
scarcely ever off his back. For instance, thismorninS 
though a keen blowing frost, in my walk before breafil 
fast, I finished my duet which yuu were pleased to! 
praise so much. "Whether 1 have uniformly succeed-; 
ed, I will not say ; but here it is for you, though it ia 
not an hour old. 

HE. 

O Philly, happy be that day 

When roving through the gather'd hay, 

See Poems, p. 97. 



Ime 



it ; and point out 



Tell me honestly how you 
whatever you thiukJaulty. 

I am much pleased with your idea of singing our 
songs in alternate stanzas, and regret that you did not 
hint it to me sooner. In those that remain, I shall 
have it in my eye. 1 remember your objections to the 
name idiillv ; but it is the common abbreviation of 
Phillis. Sally, the only other name that suits, has to 
my ear a vulgarity about it, which unfits it for any 
thing except burlesque. The legion of Scottish poet- 
asters of the day, whom your brother editor, Mr. Rit- 
son, ranks with me, as my coevals, have always mis- 
taken vulgarity for simplicity : whereas, simplicity is 
as much doisnee from vulgarity on the one hand, .'.• 
from affected point and puerile conceit on the other. 

I agree with you as to the air, C ragie-burn-wood, 
that a chorus would in some degree spoil the effect ; 
and shall certainly have none in my projected song to 
it. It is not however a case in point with Hot/tiemur- 
chie ; there, as in Roy's Wife of Aldivaloch, a chorus 
goes, to my taste, well enough. " As to the chorus going 
first, that is the case with Roy's Wife, as well as 
Rolhiemurchie. in fact, in the first part of both tunes, 
the rhythm is so peculiar and irregular, and on that 
irregularity depends so much of their beauty, that we 
must e'en" take them with all their wildness, and 
humour the verses accordingly. Leaving out the starl- 
ing note, in both times.has, i think, an effect that no 
regularity could counterbalance the wan. of. 

Try 

O Roy's Wife of Aldivaloch. 
O Lassie wi' the lint-white lock* 

and compare with, 



Roy's Wife of Aldivaloch. 
Lassie wi' the lint-white 1 



144 



LETTERS. 



Does not the tameness of the prefixed syllable strike 
you? In the last case, with the true furor of genius, 
you strike at once into the wild originality of the air : 
whereas in the first insipid method, it is like the gra- 
ting screw of the pins before the fiddle is brought into 
tune. This is my taste ; if I urn wrong, 1 beg pardon 
of the cognoscenti. 

The Caledonian Hunt is so charming that it would 
make any subject in a song go down ; but pathos is 
certainly its native tongue. .Scottish Bacchanalians 
we certainly want, though the few we have are excel- 
lent. For instance, Todiin. Hame, is, for wit and 
humour an unparalleled composition ; and Andrew 
and Ids cully gun] is the work of a master, liy the 
way, are you not quite vexed to think that those men 
of genius, for such they certainly were, who composed 
our fine Scottish lyrics, should be unknown? It has 

I given me many a heart-ache. Apropos to Bacchana- 
lian songs in Scottish ; I composed one yesterday, for 
an air 1 like much — Lumps o' Pudding. 
f 
eta i ,■' 
Scotti 



Contented wi' little, and canty wi' mair, 
Whene'er 1 forgather wi' sorrow and care, 

See Poems, p. 97. 

you do not relish this air, I will send it to 
son. 



pie of English stanzas, by way of an fcngl 
ivy's Wife. You will allow "me that in this iu- 
nce, my English corresponds ill sentiment with the 
ottish. 

iNST THOU LEAVE ME THUS, MY KATY ? 



Chorus. 



Canst thou leave me thus, my Kaly 7 
Canst thou leave me tlius, my Katy ?* 

See Poems, p. 97. 

* To this address, in the character of a forsaken 
lover, £. reply was found on the part of the lady, among 
the MSS. of our bard, evidently in a female hand-wri- 
ting ; which is doubtless that referred to in p. 134, let- 
ter No. XL1I. Note. The temptation to give it to the 
public is irresistible ; and if, in so doing, offence should 
be given to the fair authoress, the beauty of her verses 
must plead our excuse. 

Tune— ' Roy's Wife.' 

Chorus. 

Slay, my Willie — yet believe me, 

Slay, my Willie — yel believe me, 

F^ir, ah! thou knoio'stna evei y pain 

Wad wring my bosom shouhlsl thou leave me. 

Tell me that thou yet art true, 

And a' my wrongs shall be forgiven, 

And when this heart proves fause to thee, 
Yon sun shall cease its course in heaven. 
Stay my Willie, ire. 

But to think I was betray'd, 

That falsehood e'er our loves should sunder 1 
To take the Bow'ret to my breast, 

And find the guilefu' serpent under! 
Say my II illie, &;c. 

Co lid i nope thoud'st ne'er deceive, 
Celestial pleasures, might I choose 'em, 

I'd slight, nor seek in other spheres 
That heaven I'd find within thy bosom. 
Say My Willie, itc. 

It may amusa the reader to be told, that ou this oc- 
tision the gentleman and the lady have exchanged the I 
dialects of their respective countries. The Scottish I 



Well ! I think this, to be done in two or three tantf 
across my room, and with two or tnru* inches of Irish 
Blackguard, is not so lev amiss. i ou see I am deter- 
mined to have my quantum of applause from some- 
body. 

Tell my friend Allan (for I am sure that we onJy 
want the trifling circumstance of being know to one an- 
other, to be the best fi iends on earth) that I much sus- 
pect he has, in his plates, mistaken the figure of the 
stock and horn. I have, at last, gotten one ; but it is a 
very rude instrument. It is composed of three parts ;' 
the stock, which is the hinder thigh-bone of a sheep, 
such as you see in a mutton ham ; the horn, which is a 
common Highland cow's horn, cut off at the smaller 
end, until the aperture be large enough to admit the 
stock to be pushed up through the horn until it be held 
by the thicker end of the thigh-bone ; and lastly, an 
eaten reed exactly cut and notched like that which you 
see every shepherd boy have, when the corn stems are 
green and full-grown. The reed is not made fast in the 
bone, but is held by the lips, and plays loose in the 
smaller end of the stock : while the stock, with the horn 
hanging on its larger end, is held by the hands in play- 
ing. The stock has six or seven ve'ntiges on the upper 
sides, and one back veotige, like the common flute. 
This of mine was made by a man from the braes of 
Athole, and is exactly what the shepherds wont to use 
in that country. 

However, either it is not quite properly bored in tire 
holes, or else we have not the art of blowing it rightly : 
for we can make little of it. If Mr. Allan chooses I 
will send him a sight o-f mine J as I look on myself to 
be a kind of brother-brush with him. " Pride in Poets 
is nae sin ;" and 1 will oay it, that 1 look on Mr. Allan 
and Mr. Burns to be the only genuine and real painters 
of Scottish costume ii. tne world. 



MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 

•23th November, 1794. 
I acknowledge, my dnar Sir, you are not only the 
most punctual, hut tho most delectable correspondent 
I ever met with. TV. attempt flattering you, never 
entered into ray head •, the truth is, I look back with 
surprise at my impudence, in so frequently nibbling at 
lines and couplets of your incomparable lyrics, for 
which, perhaps, if you had served me right, you would 
have sent me to the devil. On the contrary, however, 
you have all along condescended to invite my criticism 
with so much courtesy, that it ceases to be wonderful, 
if I have sometimes given myself the airs of a reviewer. 
Your last budget demands unqualified praise : all the 
songs are charming, but the duet is a. chef d' CBUvrt. 
Lumps o' Puddin, sin.H certainly make one of my 
family dishes ; you have cooked it" so capitally, that it 
will piease all palates. Do give us a few more of ibis 
cast when you find yours.«;".i' in good spirits ; these con- 
vivial songs are more wanted than those of the amorous 
kind, of which, we have great choice. Besides, one 
does not often meet with x singer capable of giving the 
proper effect to the latt'.r. while the former are easily 
sung, and acceptable to every body. I participate in 
your regret that the authors of some of our best songs 
are unknown ; it is provoking to every admirer of 
genius. 

1 mean to btve a picture painted from your beautiful 
ballad, The Soldier's Return, to be engraved for one 
of my frontispieces. The must interesting point offline 
appears to me, whpn she iiiKt recognizes her ain ri?a»- 
WKly, " She gaz'd, she icddeu'd \Ue a rose." 'I'f-.e 
three lines immediately low., wing are no doubt more 
impressive on the reader's feelings ; but were the 

bard makes his address in pure English : the repiy ou 
the part of the lady, in the Scottish dialect, is, if we 
mistake not, by a young and beautiful Englishwo- 
man. E. 



LETTERS. 



145 



pelnter to fix on these, then you'll observe the anima- 
tion and anxiety of her countenance is gone, and he could 
only represent her tainting in the soldier's arms. But 
I submit the matter to you, and beg your opinion. 

Allan desires me to thank you for your accurate des- 
cription of the stock and horn, and for the very gratify- 
ing compliment you pay him in considei ing him worthy 
of standing in a niche by the side of Burns in the Scot- 
tish Pantheon. He has seen the rude instrument you 
describe, so does not want you to send it ; but wishes 
to know whether you believe it to have ever been 
generally used as a musical pipe by tne Scottish shep- 
herds, and when, and in what part of the country 
chiefly. I doubt much if it was capable of any thing 
hut routing and roaring. A friend, of mine says, he re- 
members to have heard one in his younger days made 
of wood instead of your bone, and that the sound was 
abominable. 

Do not, I beseech you, return any hooks. 



MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

December, 1794. 

it is, I assure you, the pride of my heart, to do any 
thing to forward, or add to the value of your book ; and 
as 1 agree with yoa that the Jacobite song in the Muse- 
um, to There'll never be pence liil Jamie comes home., 
would not so well consort with Peter Pindar's excellent 
love-song to that air, 1 have just framed fur you the 
following : 

MY NANNIE'S AWA. 
Now in her green mantle blithe nature arrays,- 
And listens the lambkins that bleat o'er the "braes. 
See Poems, p. 9S. 

How does this please you? As to the point of time 
for the expression, in your proposed p. int from my 
Sodger's Return, it must certainly be at — " She 
gaz'd." The interesting dubiety and 'suspense taking 
possession of her countenance, and the gushing fund- 
nesa with a mixture of roguish playfulness in his, strike 
me, as things of which a master will make a great deal. 
Iu great haste, but in great truth, yours. 



No. LXVII 

MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMPSON. 

January, 1795. 
1 fear for my songs ; however a few may please, yet 
originality is a coy feature in composition, and in a 
multiplicity of efforts in the same style, disappears al- 
together. For these three thousand years, we poetic 
folks, have been describing the spring, for instance ; 
and as the spring continues the same, there must soon 
be a sameness in the imagery, &c. of these said rhyming 
folks. 

A great critic, Aikin, on songs, says, that love and 
wine are the exclusive themes for song-writing. The 
following is on neither subject, and consequently is no 
song ; but will be allowed, I think, to be two or three 
pretty good prose thoughts, inverted into ryhme. 

FOR A' THAT AND A' THAT. 
Is there, for honest poverty, 

That hangs his head and a' that ; 

See Poems, p. 9S. 

do not give you tne foregoing song for your book, 
but merely by way of vice la bagatelle ; for the piece 
is not really poetry. How will the following do for 
Craigie-burn-wood 7* 



Sweei la's the eve on Craigie-burn, 
And blithe awakes the morrow ; 

See Poems, p. 98. 
Farewell 1 God bless you. 



No. LXVIII. 

MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 

Edinburgh, Hith January, 1795. 
MY DEAR SIR, 

I thank you heartily for Nannie's awa, as well as for 



Craigie-burn, which I think a very comely pair. 
observation on the difficulty of original writing 
number of efforts, in the same style, strikes me 
forcibly : and it has again and again excited m; 
der to find you continually surmounting this di" 
in the many delightful songs you have sent me, 
vive la bagatelle song, For a' that, shall undoubtedly, 
be included in my list. 



•. Your 
ng in a 
me very 



No. LXIX. 

MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. B 
February, 1795. 
Here is another trial at your favorite air. 

O I.assie, art thou sleeping yet ? 
Or art thou wakin, I would wit ? 

See Poems, p. 9ft 

HER ANSWER. 

O tell na me o' wind and rain, 
Upbraid me na wi' cauld disdain. 

I do not know whether it will do 



MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

Ecclefechan, 1th Feb. 1795 
MY DEAR THOMSON, 

You cannot have any idea of the predicament ir 
which 1 write to you. In the course of my duty as Su 
pervisor (in which capacity I have acted oflate) 1 came 
yesternight to this unfortunate, wicked, little village. 
I have gone forward, but snows of ten feet deep have 
impeded my progress ; I have tried to " gae back the 
gait I cam again." but the same obstacle has shut me 
up within insuperable bars. To add to my misfortune 
since dinner, a scraper has been torturing catgut, jr. 
sounds that would have insulted the dying aeouies of a 
sow under the hands of a butcher, and thinks himself, 
on that very account, exceeding good company. In 
fact. 1 have "been in a dilemma, either to get drunk, to 
forget these miseries, or to hang myself to get rid of 
them ; like a prudent man, (a character congenial to 
my every thought, word, and deed,) 1 of two evils, have 
chosen the least, and am very drunk, at your set vice !* 

I wrote to you yesterday from Dumfries. I had not 
time then to tell you all I wanted to say ; and heaven 
knows, at present 1 have not capacity. 

Do you know an air — I am sure you must know rt, 

village of that name, celebrated for its medicinal wa- 
ters. — The woods of Craigie-burn and of Dumcrief, 
were at one time favourite haunts of our poet. It vat 
there he met the " Lassie wi' the lint-white locks," and 
that he conceived several of his beautiful lyrics. E. 



Craigie-burn-wood is situated on the banks of the * The bard must have been tipsy indeed, to abuse 
Moffat, and about three miles distant from the sweet Ecclefechan at this rate. E. 

o 



146 



LETTERS. 



We' 11 gang naemair to yon town? I think, in slowish 
time, it would make an excellent song. I am highly de 
lighted with it ; and if you should think it worthy of 
your attention, I have a fair dame in my eye to whom I 
would consecrate it. 

As I am just going to bed, I wish you a good night. 



MR. THOMPSON TO MR. BURNS. 

25lh February, 1795. 
I have to thank you, my dear Sir, for two epistles, 
one containing Let me in this ae night ; and the other 
from Ecclefechan, proving that drunK or sober, your 
" mind is never muddy." You have displayed great 
address in the above song. Her answer is excellent, 
and at the same time, takes away the indelicacy that 
otherwise would have attached to his entreaties. I 
like the song as it now stands, very much. 

I had hopes you would be arrested some days at Ec- 
clefechan, and be obliged to beguile the tedious fore- 
noons by song-making. It will give me pleasure to 
receive the verses you intend for O wat ye wha's in 
yon town 7 



No. LXXII. 

/ MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

May, 1795. 
ADDRESS TO THE WOODLARK. 

O stay sweet warbling woodiark, stay, 
Nor quit for me the trembling spray. 

See Poems, p. 99. 

Let me know, your very first leasure, how you like 
ibis song. 

©N CHLORIS BEING ILL. 

Chorus. 

Long, long the night, 
Heavy comes the morrow, 

See Poems, p. 99. 

How do you like the foregoing- ? The Irish air, Hu- 
mours of Glen, is a great favourite of mine; and as, 
except the silly stuff in the Poor Soldier, there are not 
any decent verses for it, I have wiritten for it as 
follows : 

SONG. 

Their groves o' sweet myrtle let foreign lands recKon, 

Where bright-beaming summers exalt the perfume ; 

See Poems, p. 99. 



'Twas na her bonnie blue e'e was my ruin ; 

Fair tho' she be, that was ne'er my undoing ; 

See Poems, p. 

Let me hear from you. 



No. LXXIII. 

MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 

Ton must not think, my good Sir, that I have any in- 
tention to enhance the value of my gift, when 1 say, in 



justice to the ingenious and worthy artist, that the »!*■ 
sign and execution of the Cotter's Saturday Night i», 
in my opinion, one of the happiest productions of AV- 
lan's pencil. 1 shall be grievously disappointed if yon 
are not quite pleased with it. 

The figure intended for your portrait, I think strik- 
ingly like you, as far as I can remember your phiz. 
This should make the piece interesting to your family 
every way. — Tell roe whether Mrs. Burns find3 vou out 
among the figures. 

I cannot express the feeling of admiration with 
which 1 have read your pathetic Address to the Wood- 
Lark, your elegant Panegyric on Caledonia, and your 
affecting verses on Chloris's illness. Every repeated 
perusal of these gives new delight. The other song to 
" Laddie, lie near me," though not equal to these, is 
very pleasing. 



No. LXXIV. 

MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

How cruel are the parents, 
Who riches only prize ; 

See Poems, p. 100. 



Mark yonder pomp of costly fashion, 
Round the wealthy, titled bride ; 

See Poems, p. 100. 

Well! this is not amiss. Vou see how I answer your 
orders ; your tailor could not be more punctual. 1 am 
just now in a high fit for poetizing, provided that the 
strait jacket of criticism don't cure me. If you can in 
a post or two administer a little of the intoxicating por- 
tion of your applause, it will raise your humble ser- 
vant's frenzy to any height you want, lam at this 
moment "holding high converse" with the Muses, 
and have not a word to throw away on such a prosaic 
dog as vou are. 



MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON 

May, 1795. 
Ten thousand thanks for your elegant present ; 
though I am ashamed of the value of it being bestowed 
on a man who has not by any means merited such an 
instance of kindness. 1 have shown it to two or three 
judges of the first abilities here, and they all agree 
with me in classing it as a first rate production. My 
phiz is sae ken-speckle, that the very joiner's appren 
tice whom Mrs. Burnes employed to break up the 
parcel (I was out of town that day) knew it at once. — 
My most grateful compliments to Allan, who has hon- 
oured my rustic muse so much with his masterly pencil. 
One strange coincidence is, that the little one who is 
making the felonious attempt on the cat's tail, is the 
most striking likeness of an ill-deedie, d — n'd wee, 
rumble-gairie urchin of mine, whom, from that pro 
pensity to witty wickedness, and manfu' mischief, 
which even at two days auld, I foresaw wotdd form the 
striking features of his disposition, 1 named Willie Ni- 
col, after a certain friend of mine, who is one of the 
masters of a grammar-school in a city which shall be 
nameless. 

Give the enclosed epigram to my much-valued friend 
Cunningham, and tell him that on Wednesday 1 go to 
isit a friend of his, to whom his friendly partiality In 
speaking of me, in a manner introduced me — I mean 
a well-known military and literary character, Colonel 
Dirom. 



LETTERS. 



147 



You Jo not tell me how you liked my two last songs. 
Are they condemned ? 



MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 

nth May, 1795. 
It gives me great pleasure to find that you are so 
well satisfied with Mr. Allan's production. The 
chance resemblance of your little fellow, whose pro- 
mising disposition appeared so very early, and sug- 
gested whom he should be named after, is curious 
enough. I am acquainted with that person, who is a 
prodigy of learning and genius, and a pleasant fellow, 
though no saint. 

You really make me blush when you tell me you 
have not merited the drawing from me. I do not think 
I can ever repay you, or sufficiently esteem and re- 
spect you for the liberal and kind manner in which you 
have entered into the spirit of my undertaking, which 
could not have been perfected without you. So I beg 
you would not make a fool of me again, by speaking of 
obligation. 

I like your two last songs very much, and am happy 
to find you are in such a high fit of poetizing. Long 
may it last ! Clarke has made a fine pathetic air to 
Mallet's superlative ballad of William and Margaret, 
and is to give it me to be enrolled among the elect. 



MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

In Whistle, and Pll come to you, my lad, the itera- 
tion of that line is tiresome to my ear. Here goes 
what I think is an improvement. 

O whistle, and I'll come to ye, my lad, 
O whistle, and I'll come to ye, my lad ; 
Tho' father and mother and a' should gae mad, 
Thy Jeany will venture wi' ye my lad. 

In fact, a fair dame at whose shrine, I the Priest of 
the Nine, offer up the incense of Parnassus ; a dame, 
whom the Graces have attired in witchcraft, and whom 
the loves have armed with lightning, a Fair One, her- 
self the heroine of the song, insists on the amendment: 
and dispute her commands if you dare ! 

SONG. 

O thin is no my ain lassie, 
Fair tho' the lassie be; 

See Poems, p. 100. 

Do you know that you have roused the torpidity of 
Clarke at last? He has requested me to write three 
or four songs for him, which he is to set to music him- 
self. The enclosed sheet contains two songs for him, 
which please to present to my valued friend Cunning- 



I enclose the sheet open, both for your inspection, 
and that you may copy the song, O bonnie was yon 
rosy brier. I do not know whether I am right ; but 
that song pleases me, and as it is extremely probable 
that Clarke's newly roused celestial spark will be soon 
smothered in the fogs of indolence, if you like the song, 
it may go as Scottish verses, to the air of I wish my 
love was in a mire ; and poor Erskine's English lines 
may follow. 

I enclose you, a jPor a' that and a' that, which was 
never in print; it is a much superior song to mine. 
I have been told that it was composed by a lady. 
Now spring has clad the grove in gieen 
And strew'd the lea wi' flowers : 



See Poems, p. 100. 



O bonnie was yon rosy brier 
That blooms sae far frae haunt o' man ; 

See Poems, p. 101. 

Written on the blank leaf of a copy of the last edi. 
tion of my poems, presented to the lady, whom, in so 
many fictitious reveries of passion, but with the most 
ardent sentiments of real friendship, I have so often 
sung under the name of Chloris. 

'Tis Friendship's pledge, my young, fair friend, 



i is r nenasnip's pieage, r 
Nor thou the gift refuse, 



line bagatelle de V amitie. 



See Poems, p. 101. 
COILA. 



No. LXXVIII. 

MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURN^B 

Edinburgh, 3d Aug. 1795. 
MY DEAR SIR, 

This will be delivered to yon by a Dr. Brianton, who 
has read your works, and pants for the honour of your 
acquaintance. I do not know the gentleman, but his 
friend, who applied to me for this introduction, being 
an excellent young man, I have no doubt he is worthy 
of all acceptation. 

My eyes have just been glanMpned, and my mind 
feasted, with your last packet — full of pleasant things 
indeed. What an imagination is yours ! It is super- 
fluous to tell you that I am delighted with all the three 
songs, as well as with your elejant and tender verses 
to Chloris. 

I am sorry you should be induced to alter O whistle, 
and Pll c^me tn ye, my lad. In the prosaic line, Thy 
Jeany will venture v>V ye, my lad. I must be permit. 
ted to say, that I do not' think the latter either reads 
or sings so well as the former. I wish, therefore, you 
would, in my name petition the charming Jeany 
whoever she be, to let the line remain unaltered.* 

I should be happy to see Mr. Clarke produce a few 
airs to be joined to your verses. Every body regrets 
his writing so very little, as every body acknowledges 
his ability to write well. Pray was the resolution 
formed cooly before dinner, or was it a midnight vow, 
made over a bowl of punch with the bard ? 

I shall not fail to give Mr. Cunningham what you 
have sent him. 

P. S. The lady's For a> that and a' that, is sensible 
enough, but no more to be compared to yours than I 
to Hercules. 



MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMPSON. 

Forlorn, my love, no comfort near, 
Far, far from thee, I wander here ; 

See Poems, p. 101. 

How do you like the foregoing 1 I have written It 
within this hour : so much for the speed of my Pegassus, 
but what say you to his bottom ? 

* The editor, who has heard the heroine of this song 
sing it herself in the very spirit of arch simplicity that 
it requires, thinks M. Thomson's petition unreasona- 
ble. If we mistake no* this is the same lady who pr >- 
duced the lines to the tine of Roy's Wife, ante, p. 
US. 



148 



LETTERS. 



No. LXXX. 
MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 
Last May the braw wooer cam down the lang gle 
Audsair wi' his love did he deave me ;* 

See Poems, p. 



Why, why tell thy lover, 
Bliss he never must enjoy 1 



See Poems, p. 10'2 



Such id the peculiarity of the rhythm of this air, 
that I find it impossible to make another stanza to 
suit it. 

lam at present quite occupied with the charming 
recusations of the tooth-ach, so have not a word to 
spare. 



MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 

3d June, 1795. 
MY DEAR SIR, 

Your English verses to Lei me in this ae night, are 
tender and beautiful ; and your ballad to the ' Lothian 
Lassie," is a masterpiece for its humour and nai- 
vete. The fragment for the Caleilonmii Hun! is quite 
suited to the original measure of the air. and, as it 
plagues you so, the fragment must content it. 1 
would rather, as l said before, have had bacchanalian 
words, had it so pleased the poet ; but, nevertheless, 
for what we have received, Lord make us thankful ! 



No. LXXXII. 
MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS, 

5th Feb. 1796. 
O Robby Burns, are ye sleeping yet ? 
Or are ye waulcing, I would wit J 

The pause you have made, my dear Sir, is awful ! 
Am I never to hear from you again? I know and 1 
lament how much you have been afflicted of late, but 
1 trust that returning health and spirits will now 
enable you to resume the pen, and delight us with 
your musings. I have still about a dozen Scotch and 
Irish airs that I wish ''married to immortal verse." 
We have several true born Irishmen on the Scottish 
list; but they are now naturalized, and reckoned our 
own good subjects. Indeed we have none better. I 
believe I before told you that I had been much urged 
by some friends to publish a collection of all out favour- 
ite airs and songs in octavo, embellished with a num- 
ber of etchings by our ingenious friend Allan ; — what 
is your opinion of this ? 

* In the original MS. the third line of the fourth 
verse runs, " He up the Galcslack to my black cousin 
Bess." Mr. Thomson objected to this word, as well 
as to the wcrd, Dalgamock in the next verse. Mr. 
Burns replies as follows : 

" Gateslack is the name of a particular place, a kind 
«>f passage up among the Lawther hills, on the confines 
of this county. Dalgamock is also the name of a ro- 
mantic spot near the Nith, where are still a ruined 
•hurch and burial-ground. However, let the first run, 
" He up the lang loan," &c. 

It is always a pity to throw out any thing that gives 
locality to our poet's verses. E. 



No. LXXXIII. 
MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

February, 1796. 
Many thanks, my dear Sir, for your handsome, ele- 
gant present, to Mrs. B — — , and for my remaining 
vol. of P. Findar.— Peter is a delightful fellow, and a 
first favourite of mine. I am much pleased with your 
idea of publishing a collection of our songs in octavo, 
with etchings, I am extremely willing to lend every 
assistance in my power. The' Irish airs I shall cheer 
fully undertake the task of finding verses for. 

I have already, you know, equipped three with 
words, and the other day I strung up a kind of rhap- 
sody to another Hibernian melody, which I admire 

much. 

HEY FOR A LASS WI' A TOCHER, 

Awa wi' your witchcraft o 1 beauty's alarms. 
The slender bit beauty you grasp in your arms 
See Poems, p. 102. 

If this will do, you have now four of ray Irish en- 
gagement. In my by-past songs 1 dislike one thing ; 
the name of Chloris — 1 meant as the fictitious name of 
a certain lady : but, on second thoughts, it is a high 
incongruity to have a Greek appellation to a Scottish 
pastora} ballad. — Of this and some tilings else, in my 
next : I have more amendments to propose. — What 
you once mentioned of " flaxen locks" is just ; they 
cannot enter into an elegant description of beauty. Of 
this also again — God bless you !* 



No. LXXXIV. 
MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 

Your Hey for a lass wV a tocher, is a most excellent 
song, and with you the subject is something new in- 
deed. It is the first time 1 have seen you debasing the 
god of soft desire, into an amateur of acres and 
guineas.— 

I am happy to find you approve of my proposed octa- 
vo edition. Allan has designed and etched about 
twenty plates, aud 1 am tc have my choice of them for 
that work. Independently of the Hogarthian humour 
with which they abound, they exhibit the character 
and costume of the Scottish peasantry with inimitable 
felicity. In this respect, he himself says they will far 
exceed the aquatinta plates he did for the Gentle 
Shepherd, because in the etching he sees clearly what 
he is doing, but not so with the aquatinta, which be 
could not manage to his mind. 

The Dutch boors of Ostade are scarcely more cha- 
racteristic anil natural than the Scottish figures in 
those etchings. 



No. LXXXV. 

MR, BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

April, 179C. 
Alas, my dear Thomson, I fear it will be some time 
ere 1 tune my lyre again 1 " By liabel streams I have 
sat and wept," almost ever since 1 wrote you last : I 
have only known existence by the pressure of the heavy 
hand of sickness and have counted time by the reper- 
cussions of pain 1 Rheumatism, cold and fever, have 
formed to me a terrible combination. I close my eyes 
in misery, and open them without hope, I look on the 
vernal day, and say with poor Fergusson-- 

* Our Poet never explained what name h/ei would 
have substituted for Chloris. 

Note by Mr. ThomtGn, 



LETTERS. 



149 



" Say. wherefore has an all-indulgent Heaven 
Light to the comfortless and wretched given ?" 

This will be delivered to you by a Mrs. Hyslop 
landlady of the Globe Tavern here, which for these 
many years has been my hovff, and where our friend 
Clarke and I have had "many a merry squeeze. I am 
highly delighted with Mr. Allan's etchings. Woo'd 
and married an' a', is admirable. The grouping is 
beyond all praise. The expression of the figures con- 
formable to the story in the ballad, is absolutely fault- 
less perfection. I next admire, Turn-im-spike. What 
I like least is Jenny said to Jockey. Besides the female 
being in her appearance * * * * if 

you take her stooping into the account, she is at least 
two inches taller than her lover. Poor Cleghorn : 1 
sincerely sympathize with him ! Happy I am to think 
that he has yet a well grounded hope of health and 
enjoyment in thW world. As for me--but that is 
a * * * * subject 1 



No. LXXXVI. 

MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 

4th May, 1796. 
I need not tell you, my good .Sir, what concern the 
receipt of your last gave me, and how much 1 sympa- 
thize in your sufferings. But do not 1 beseech you, 
give yomself up to despondency, nor speak tbti lan- 
guage of despair. The vigour of your constitution, I 
trust, will soon set you on youi feet again ; and then 
it is to be hoped you will see the wisdom and the neces- 
sity of taking due care of a life so valuable to your 
family, to your friends, and to the world. 

Trusting that your next will bring agreeable ac- 
counts of your convalescence, and returning good 
spirits, I remain with sincere regard, yours. 



P. S. Mrs. Hyslop, I doubt not, delivered the 
gold seal to ycu in good condition. 



No. LXXXVII. 
MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON, 

MY DEAR SIR, 
I once mentioned to you an air which T have long ad- 

mired--Here's a health to tlum that's au-a, hinnie, but 
I forget if you took any notice of it. 1 have just been 
trying to suit it with verses ; and 1 beg leave to recom- 
mend the air to your attention once more. I have 
only begua it. 

Chorus. 

Here's a health to ane Iln'e dear, 
Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear ;* 

See Poems, p. 102. 



No, LXXXVII I. 
MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 
This will be delivered by a Mr. Lewars, a young 
fellow of uncommon merit. As he will be a day or 
two in town, you will have leisure if you choose to 
write me by him : and if you have a spare half hour to 
spend with h*m, I shall place yjur kindness to my 

* In the letter to Mr. Thomson, the three first stan- 
zas only are given, and Mr. Thomson supposed our 
poet had never gone farther. Among his MSS. was, 
however, found the fourth stanza, which completes 
this exquisite song, the last finished offspring of his 
muse. E, 



account. I have no copies of the songs I have sent you, 
and I have taken a fancy to review them all, and pos- 
sibly may mend some of them ; so, when you hav- 
complete" leisure, 1 would thank you for either the 
originals or copies.* I had rather be the author of five 
well-written songs, than of ten otherwise. 1 have 
great hopes that the genial influence of the approach- 
ing summer will set me to rights, but as yet 1 cannot 
boast of returning health. I have now reason to be- 
lieve that my complaint is a flying gout — a sad busi- 
ness. 

Do let me know how Cleghorn is, and remember me 
to him. 

This should have been delivered to you a month ago. 
I am still very poorly, but should like much to hear 
from you. 



No. LXXXIX. 

MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 

Brow, on the Solway Frith, \2th July, 1796. 

After all my boasted independence, cursed necessi* 
compels me to implore you for five pounds. A crue 
* * * * of a haberdasher, to whom I owe an af 
count, taking it into his head that 1 am dying, has corr 
menced a process, and will infallibly put me into Jan. 
Do, for God's sake, send me that sum, and that by re- 
turn of post. Forgive me this earnestness, but the 
horrors of a jail have made me half distracted. I do 
not ask all this gratuitously ; for, upon returning 
health,! hereby promise and engage to furnish you 
with five pounds worth of the neatest song genius you 
have seen. 1 tried my hand on Rothiemurckie this 
morning. The measure is so difficult, that it is impos- 
sible to infuse much genius into the lines ; they are on 
'be other side. Forgive, forgive me 

SONG. 



Fairest maid on Devon Banks, 
Chrystal Devon, winding Devon,\ 

See Poems, p. 102. 



MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 



lith July, 1796. 



MY DEAR SIR, 



Ever since I received your melancholy letter by Mrs. 
Hyslop, 1 have heen ruminating in what manner I 
could endeavour to alleviate your sufferings. Again 
and again i thought of a pecuniary offer, but the recol- 
lection of one of your letters on this subject, and the 
fear of offending your independent spirit, checked my 
resolution. I thank you heartily therefore for the frank- 
ness of your letter of the 12th, and with great pleasure 
enclose a draft for the very sum I proposed sending. 
Would I were Chancellor of the Exchequer for one day 
for your sake ? 

* It is needless to say that this revisal Burns did not 
live to perform. E. 

t This song, and the letter enclosing it, are written 
in a character that marks the very feeble state of 
Burns's bodily strength. Mr. Syme is of opinion that 
he could not have been in any danger of a jail at Dum- 
fries, where certainly he had many firm friends ; nor 
under any such necessity of imploring aid from Edin- 
burgh. But about tbis/.ime his reason began to be at 
times unsettled, and the horrors of a jail perpetually 
haunted his imagination. He died on the 21st of this 
month. E. 



150 



LETTERS. 



Pray, my good .Sir, is it not possible foi you to muster 
a volume of poetry ? If too much trouble lo you in the 
present state of your health, some literary friend might 
be found here, who would select and arrange from 
your manuscripts, and take upon him the task of Edi- 
tor. In the mean time it could be advertised to be 
published by subscription. Do not shun this mode of 
obtaining the value of your labour: remember l'ope 
published the Iliad by subscription. Think of this, my 
dear Burns, and do not reckon me intrusive with my 
advice. You are too well convinced of the respect anil 
friendship I bear you to impute any thing I say to an 
unworthy motive. Yours faithfully. 

The verses to Rothiemurchie will answer finely. I 
am happy to see you can still tune your lyre. 



EXTRACT OF A LETTER, 

jfcFROM GILBERT BURNS TO DR. CURRIE. 

It may gratify curiosity to know some particulars of 
the history of the preceding I'oems,* on which the 
celebrity of our Card has been hitherto founded : and 
with this view the following extract is made from a 
letter of Gilbert Burns, the brother of our poet, and 
his friend and confidant from his earliest years. 



Mosgill, 2d April, 1798. 
DEAR SIR, 

Your letter of the 1 1th of March I received in due 
course, but from the hurry of the season have been 
hitherto hindered from answering it. I will now try to 
give you what satisfaction 1 can, in regard to the par- 
ticulars you mention. I cannot pretend to be very ac- 
curate in respect to the dates of the poems, but none of 
them, except Winter a Dirge, (which was a juveni.e 
production,) The Death an I Dy n; wonts of Poai 
^Silaillie, and some of the songs, were composed before 
Rhe year 1784. The circumstances of the poor sheep 
were pretty much as he has described them. He hail 
partly by way of frolic, bought a ewe and two hi nibs 
from a neighbour, and she was tethered in a field ad- 
joining the -house at Lochlie. He and I were going 
out, with our teams, and our two younger brothers to 
drive for us, at mid-day ; when Hugh \\ ilson, a curi- 
ous looking awkward boy, clad in plaidiug, came to us 
with much anxiety in his face., with the information 
that the ewe had entangled herself in the tether, and 
was lying in the ditch. Hubert was much tickled with 
Huoc's appearance and postures or. the occasion. Poor 
Mailliewas set to rights, and when we returned from 
the plough in the evening, he repeated to me her Dr i. h 
anl Dying Words, pretty much in the way they now 
stand. 

Among the earliest of his poems was the Episle to 
Davie. Robert often composed without any regular 
plan. When any thing made a strong impression on 
his mind, so as to rouse it to poetic exertion, he would 
give way to the impulse, and embody the thought in 
rhyme. If he hit on two or three stanzas to please 
him, he would then think of proper introductory, con- 
necting, and concluding stanzas hence the middle of 
a poem was often first produced. Jl was. I think, in 
summer 1781, when in the inlerva' of harder labour, 
he and I were weeding in the garden, (kailyard.) that 
he repeated to me the principal part of this epistle. I 
believe the first idea of Robert becoming an author 
was started on this occasion. 1 was much pleased 
with the epistle, and said to him, 1 was of opinion it 
would bear being printed, and that it would be well re- 
aeived by people of taste ; that I thought it at least 
equal if not superior to many of Allan Ramsay's epis- 
tles ; and that the merit of these, and much other 
Scotch poetry, seemed to consist principally in the 
knack of the expression, but here, there was a train 
of interesting sentiment, and the Stoticism of the lan- 

* This refers to the piece! inserted before page 60 of 
the I'oems. 



guage scarcely seemed affected, but appeared to be the 
natural language of the poet ; that, besides, there was 
certainly some novelty in a poet pointing out tne con- 
solations that were in store for him when he should go 
a-begging. Robert seemed very well pleased with my 
criticism, and we talked of sending it to some maga- 
zine, but as this plan afforded no opportunity of know 
inghow it would take, the idea was diopped. 

It was, I think, in the winter following as we were 
going together with carts for coal to the family fire (and 
I could yet point out the particular spot) that the au- 
thor first repeated to me the Address to the Deil. The 
curious idea of such an address was suggested to him 
by running over in his mind the many ludicrous ac- 
counts and representations we have, from various 
quarters, of this august personage. Death ant Doc- 
tor Hornbook, though not published in the Kilmarnock 
edition, was produced early in the "ear 17S5. The 
Schoolmaster of Tarbolton parish, to'eke up the scan- 
ty subsistence allowed to that useful class of men, 
had set up a shop of grocery goods. Having acciden- 
tally fallen in with some medical books, and become 
nirs! huhby-horsically attached to the study of medi- 
cine, he had added tiie sale of a few medicines to his 
little trade. He had got a shcp-bill printed, at the 
bottom of which, overlooking his own incapacity, he 
had advertised, that Advice would be given in " com- 
mon disorders at the shop gratis." Robert was at a 
mason meeting in Tarbolton, when the Dominie un- 
fortunately made too ostentations a display of his medi- 
cal skill. As he parted in the evening from this mix- 
ture of pedantry and physic, at the place where he de- 
scribes his meeting with Death, one of those floating 
ideas of apparition he mentions in his letter to Dr. 
Moore, crossed his mind : this set him to work for the 
rest of the way home. These circumstances he rela- 
ted when lie repeated the vei'ses to me next afternoon, 
as 1 was holding the plough, and he was letting the 
water off the field beside me. The Epistle to John 
Lai, rail; was produced exactly on the occasion de- 
scribed by the author. He says in that poem, On fan: 
en-e'en, u e had a roekin. 1 believe he has omitted the 
word fockinx in the glossary. It is a term derived 
from those primitive times, when the countrywomen 
employed their spare hours in spinning on the rack, or 
distaff. This simple implement is a very portable one, 
and well fitted to trie social inclination of meeting in a 
neighbour's house . hence the phrase of going a-TOck- 
n ', or with the rock. As the connexion the phrase 
had with the implement was fo-gotten, when the rock 
gave place to the spinning-wheel, the phrase came to 
be used by both sexes on social occasions, and men 
talk of going with their rocks as well as women. 

It was at one of these rocking* at our house when 
we had twelve or fifteen young people with their rocks, 
that Lapraik's song beginning—'- When I upon thy 
bosom lean," was sung, and we were informed who 
was the author. Upon this, Robert wrote his first 
epistle to Lapraik ; a»d bis second in reply to his an- 
swer. The verses to the Mluse and Mountain Da sy 
were composed on the occasions mentioned, and while 
the author was holding the plough ; I could point out 
the particular spot where each was composed. Hold- 
ing the plough was a favourite situation with Robert 
for poetic composition, and some of his best verses 
were produced while he was at that exeicise. Several 
of the poems were produced for the purpose of bringing 
forward some favourite sentiment of the author, lie 
used to remark to me. that he could not well conceive 
a more mortifying picture of human life, than a man 
seckum work. ' In casting about in his mind .how this 
sentiment might be brought forward, the elegy Man 
was made t> mourn, was composed. Robert had fre- 
quently remarked to me that he thought there was 
something peculiarly venerable in the phrase, " Let us 
worship God," used by a decent, sobei head of a fami- 
ly, introducing family worship. To this sentiment of 
the author the world is indebted for the Colter's S i ur- 
day Night. The hint of the plan, and title of the 
poem, were taken from Fergusson's Farmers' 1 Inile. 
When Robert had not some pleasure in view, in which 
1 was not thought fit to participate, we used frequently 
to walk together, when the weatlier was favourable 
on the Sunday afternoons (those precious breathing 



LETTERS. 



151 



times to the labouring part of the community,) and en- 
joyed such Sundays as would make one regret to see 
their number abridged. It was in one of these walks, 
that I first had the pleasure of hearing the author re- 
peat the Colter's Saturday Night. I do not recollect 
to have heaid or read any thing by which I was more 
highly electrified. The fifth and sixth stanzas, and (he 
eighteenth, thrilled with peculiar ecstacy through my 
eoui. 1 mention this to you. that you may see what 
hit the taste of unlettered criticism'. I should le glad 
to know if the enlightened mind and refined taste of 
Mr. Koscoe, who has borne such honourable testimony 
to this poem, agrees with me in the selection. Fer- 
gusson, in his Mallow Fair of. Edinburgh, I believe, 
likewise furnished a hint of the title and plan of the 
Holy-Fair. 'I he farcical scene the poet there de- 
scribes was often a favorite field of his observation, and 
the most of the incidents he mentions had actually 
passed before his eyes. It is scarcely necessary to 
mention that the Lament was composed on that unfor- 
tunate passage in his matrimonial history, which I 
have mentioned in my letter to Airs. DunlOp, after the 
first distraction ot his feelings had a little subsided. 
Tlie Talc of Twa Doss was composed after the reso- 
•ution of publishing was nearly taken. Robert had 
had a dog, which he called Lu'iJlt, that was a great fa- 
vourite. The dog hud been killed by the wanton cruel- 
ty of some person the night before my father's death. 
Robert said to me, that he should like to confer such 
immortality as be could bestow upon his old friend 
Zniath, and that he had a great mind to introduce 
something into the book under the title of Stanzas to 
the Memory of a quadrupi d friend ; but this plan was 
given up for the Tale as it now stands. Ccesar was 
merely the creature of the poet's imagination, created 
or the purpose of holding chat with ins favourite Lu- 
alh. The first time Robert heard the spinnet played 
upon, was at the house of Dr. Lawrie, then minister of 
the parish of Loudon, now in Glasgow, having given 
up the parish in favoui of his son. Dr. Lawrie has 
several daughters: one of them played, the father 
and mother led down the dance ; the rest of the sisters, 
the brother, the poet, and the other guests, mixed in it. 
It was a delightful family scene for our poet, then late- 
ly introduced t'o the world. His mind was roused to a 
poetic enthusiasm, and the stanzas p. IS of the Poems, 
were left in the room where he slept. It was to Dr. 
Lawrie that Dr. lSlacklock's letter was addressed, 
which my brother, in his letter to Dr. Moore, mentions 
as the reason of bis going to Edinburgh. 

When my father faced his little property near .'.Ho- 
way-Kirk, the wall of the churefc-yard had gone to 
ruin, and cattle had free liberty of pasturing in it. 
My father, with two or three other neighbours, joined 
in an application to the town council of Ayr. who were 
superiors of the adjoining land, for liberty to rebuild it, 
and raised by subscription a sum for enclosing this an- 
cient cemetery with a wall ; hence he came to consider 
it as his burial-place, and we learned that reverence 
for it people generally have for the burial-place of their 
ancestors. My brother was living in Ellisland, when 
Captain Grose, on bis peregrinations through Scot- 
land, staid some time at ' 'arschouse in the neighbour- 
hood, with Captain Robert Riddel of Glen-Riddel, a 
particular friend of my brother's. The Antiquarian 
and the poet were " Unco pack and thick thegither." 
Robert requested of Captain Grose, when he should 
come to Ayrshire, that he would make a drawing oft 
Alloway-Kirk, as it was the burial-place of hi father, ; 
and where be himself had a sort of claim to lay dowtr | 
his benes when they should be no longer serviceable to 
him; and added byway ot encouragen.ert, that it was 
the scene of many a good story of witches and appari- 
tions, of Which he knew the "captain was very fond. 
The Captain agreed to the request, provided the poet 
would furnish a witch- tmy, to be printed along with 
it. Tarn o' S'lan er was produced on this occasion, 
and was first pubiished in ii rose's An i;ui ies of Sa- 
land. 

The poem is founded on a traditional story. The 
leading circumstances of a man riding home very late 
from Ayr. in a stormy night, his seeing a light in Al- 
loway-Kirk, his ha'-big the curiosity to look in. his 



seeing a dance of witches, with the devil playing on the 
bagpipe to them, the scanty covering of one of the 
witches, which made him so far forget himself, as to 
cry Weil loupen, short nark /--with t lie melancholy 
catastrophe of the piece is all a true story, that can be 
well attested by many respectable old people in that 
neighbourhood. 

I do not at present recollect any circumstances re- 
specting the other poeihs that could be at all interest- 
ing , even some of those I have mentioned, 1 am afraid 
may appear trilling enough, but you wiil only malca 
use of what appears to you of consequence. 

The following poems in the first Edinburgh Edition, 
were not in that published in Kilmarnock. Death tnul 
Ur. Uornboojc; the Brigs of Ayr ; the Calf; (the 
poet had been with Mr. Gavin Hamilton in the mor- 
ning, who said jocularly to him when he was going to 
church, in allusion to the injunction of some parents 
to their children, that he must be sure to bring him a 
note of the sermon at mid-day : this address to the 
Reverend Gentleman on his text was accordingly pjfi| 
duced.) 'Vice Ordination ; The Address to the L'Oco 
Guid ; Tarn Sanson's LUgy ; A Winter Night ; AH 
za.i an die same occasion as the pn ceding Prayer; 
I'erses left at a lieven.nl friend's House; The first 
Psalm; Prayer unU-r the Pressure of violent An- 
guish ; the first Six Verses of the Nine ielh Psalm ; 
'Verses to Miss Logan, with Beanie's Poemi ; To a 
Ua.'gis ; Address to Edinburgh ; John Barleycorn; 
When Uuilfo/d O'ui I ; BJanl yon hills where Sin- 
char flows; Gfeengrow the liaslus; Again rejoicing 
Nature sees; 'The gloomy Night; No Churchman I 
am. 

If you have never seen the first edition, it will, per- 
haps, not be amiss to transcribe the preface, that you 
may see the manner in which the poet made bis first. 
awe-struck approach to the bar of public judgment. 

[ Here followed the Preface as given in the first pag9 
of tlce Poems.] 

I am, dear Sir, 
Your most obedient humble servant, 

G LBERT BURNS. 
DR. CURRIE, Liverpool. 



To this history of the poems which are contained in 
this volume, it may be added, that our author appears 
to have made little' alteration in them after their origi- 
nal composition, except in some few instances where 
considerable additions have been introduced. After 
he had attracted the notice of the public by his first 
edition, vario"s criticisms were offered him on the pe- 
culiarities of his style, as well as of his sentiments ; 
and some of these, which remain among his manu- 
scripts, are by persons of great taste and judgment. 
Some few of these criticisms he adopted, but the far 
greater part he rejected; and, though semething has 
by this means been lost in point of delicacy and correct- 
ness, yet a deeper impression is left of the strength and 
originality of his genius. The firmness of our poet 
character, arising from a just confidence in his own 
powers, may, in part, explain his tenaciou-.ness of his 
peculiar expressions ; but it may be in some degree 
accounted for also by the circumstances under which 
the poems were composed. Burns did not, like_ men 
of genius born under happier auspices, retire, in the 
moment of inspiration, to the silence and solitude of 
his study, and commit his verses to paper as they 
aciaoiei themselves in his mind. Fortune did not 
afford him this indulgence. It was during the toils of 
daily labour that his fancy exerted itself ; the muse, as 
he himself informs us, found him at the plough, In this 
situation, it was necessary to fix his verses on bis 
memory, and it was often many days, nay weeks, 
after a poem was finished, before it was written down. 
During all this time, by frequent repetition, the associa- 
tion between the thought and the expression was con- 
firmed, and the impartiality of taste with which written 
language is reviewed arid retouched after it has faCtd 



152 



LETTERS. 



on the memory, could not in such instances be exerted. 
The original manuscripts of many of his poems are 
preserved, and they differ in nothing; material from the 
last printed edition. Some few variations may be 
noticed. 

1. In The Author's earnest Cry and Prayer after 
the stauza beginning, 

Erskine a epunkie, Norland Billie, 

appears, in his book of manuscripts, the fol- 



lowing 

Thee, SodgerHugh, my watchman stented, 

If Bardies e'er are represented : 

I ken if that your sword were wanted 

Ye'd lend your hand ; 
But when there's ought to say anent it, 

Ye'er at a stand. 

jr. Sodger Hugh, is evidently the present Earl of Eg- 
jBntoun, then Colonel Montgomery of C'oilsfield, and 
.Representing in parliament the county of Ayr. Why 
this was left out in printing does not appear. The 
noble earl will not be sorry to see this notice of him, 
familiar though it be, by a "bard whose genius he admir- 
ed, and whose fate he lamented. 

2. In The Address to the Dcil, the second stanza ran 
originally thus : 

Lang syne in Eden's happy scene, 
When strappin .Adam's days was green, 
jS And Eve was like my bonnie Jean. 
My dearest part, 
■ Adancin, sweet, yo'ung, handsome quean, 
Wi' gjiltless heart. 



contrary, Tarn o' Shanter seems to have issued perfect 
from the author's brain. The only considerable altera- 
tion made on reflection, is the omission of four lines, 
which had been inserted after the poem was finished, at 
the end of the dreadful catalogue of the articles found 
on the " haly table," and which appeared in the first 
edition of the poem, printed separately — They came 
after the hue, 

Which even to name would be unlawfu', 

and are as follows, 

Three lawyers' tongues turn'd inside out, 
Wi' lies seam'd like a beggar's clout, 
And priests' heart, rotten, black as muck, 
Lay, stinking vile, in every neuk. 

These lines which, independent of other objections, 
interrupt and destroy the emotions ef terror which the 
preceding description had excited, were very properly 
left out of the printed collection, by the advice of Mr. 
Fraser Tytlir ; to which Burns seems to have paid 
much deference.* 

6. The Address to the shade of Thomson, began in 
the folloi 



nlng, 



In The Elegy on poor Maillie, the t 



She was nae get o' 
3, at first, as follows . 



Hand tips, 



She was na get o' runted rams, 

Wi' woo' like goats and legs like trams ; 

She was the flower o' Fairlee lambs, 

A famous breed ; 
Now Robin, greetin, chows the hams 

O' Maillie dead. 

It were a pity that the Fairlee lambs should lose the 
honor once intended them. 

4. But the chief variations are found in the poems 
introduced for the first time, in the edition of two 
volumes, small octavo, published in I7!i'2. Ofthepoem 
written in Friar's-Carse Hermitage, there are seve- 
ral editions, and one of these has nothing in common 
with the printed poem but the first four lines. The 
poem that is published, which was his second erl'ort on 
the subject, received considerable alterations in 
printing. 

Instead of the six lines beginning, 

Say, man's true, genuine estitnate, 

in manuscript the following are inserted : 

Say, the criterion of their fate, 
Th' important query of their state, 
Is not, art thou hisli or low ? 
Did thy fortune ebb or flow ? 
Wert thou cottager or king ? 
Prince or peasant ? — no such thing, 

5. The Epistle to R. G. Esq. of F. that is. to R. 
Graham, Esq. of Fintra, aiso underwent considerable 
alterations, as may be collected from the General Cor- 
respondence. The style of poetry was new to our 
poet, and, though he was fitted to excel in it, it cost i 
him more trouble than his Scottish poetry. On the ! with the following remark 



the first manuscript copy i 



Uowing manner : 



While cold eye'd Spring, a virgin coy, 

Unfolds her verdant mantle sweet ; 
Or pranks the sod in frolic joy, 

A carpet for her youthful feet ; 
While Summer, with a matron's grace, 

Walks stately in the cooling shade ; 
And, oft delighted, loves to trace 

The progress of the spiky blade ; 
While Autumn, benefactor kind, 

With age's hoary honours clad, 
Surveys with self -approving mind, 

Each creature on his bounty fed, &c. 

By the alteration in the printed poem, it may be ques- 
tioned whether the poetry is much improved ; the poet 
however has found means to introduce the shades l( 
Dryburgh, the residence of the Karl of Buchan, at 
whose request these verses were written. 

These observations might be extended, but what are 
already offered will satisfy curiosity, and there is no- 
thing of any importance that could be added. 



THE FOLLOWING LETTER 

Of Burns, which contains some hints relative to the 
origin of his celebrated tale of" Tarn o' Shanter," 
the Publishers trust, will be found interesting to 
every reader of his ivorks. There appears no rea- 
son to d. •ubt of its being genuine, though it has not 
been inserted in his correspondencee published by 
Dr. Currie. 



TO FRANCIS GROSE, ESQ,. F.A.S.t 

Among the - many witch stories I have heard relating 
to Alloway kirk, I distinctly remember only two or 
three. 

* These four lines have been inadvertently replaced 
in the copy of Tarn o' Shanter, published in the first 
volume of the " Poetry, Original and Selected," of 
Brash and Reid,of Glasgow ; and to this circumstance 
is owing their being noticed here. As our poet delibe- 
rately rejected them, it is hoped that no future printer 
will insert them. 



t This Letter was first published in the Censura Li 
teraria, 1736, and was communicated to the Editor of 
that work by Mr. Gilchrist of Stamford, accompanied 



LETTERS. 



153 



Upon a stormy night, amid whistling squalls of wind, 
and bitter blasts of hail ; in short on such a night as 
the devil would chuse to take the air in ; a farmer or 
farmer's servant was plodjingand plashing homeward 
with his plough irons on his shoulder, having been get- 
ting some repairs on them at a neighbouring smithy. 
Hia way lay by the kiik of Alloway, and being rather 
on the anxious look out on approaching a place so well 
known to be a favourite haunt of the devil and the de- 
Til's friends and emissaries, he was struck aghast by 
discovering through the horrors of the storm and 
stormy night, a light, which on his nearer approach 
plainly showed itself to proceed from, the haunted edi- 
fice. Whether he had been fortified from above on his 
devout supplication, as is customary with people when 
they suspect the immediate presence of Satan, or 
whether, according to another custom, he had got 
courageously drunk at the smithy, I will not pretend to 
determine ; but so it was iliat he ventured to go up to, 
nay into the very kirk. As good luck would have it his 
temerity came off unpunished. 

The members of the infernal junto were all out on 
some midnight business or other, and he saw nothing 
but a kind of kettle or caldon depending from the roof, 
over the fire, simmering some heads of uuchristened 
children, limbs of executed malefactors, &c. for the 
business of the night. — It was in for a penny, in for a 
pound, with the honest ploughman : so without cere- 
mony he unhooked the caldron from off the fire, and 
pouring out the damnable ingredients, inverted it on 
his head, and carried it fairly home, where it remained 
long in the famUy, a living evidence of the truth of the 
etory. 

Another story which I can prove to be equally au- 
thentic, was as follows : 

On a market day in the town of Ayr, a farmer from 
Carrick, and consequently whose way laid by the very 

fate of Alloway kirk-yard, in order to cross the river 
)oon at the old bridge, which is about two or three 
hundred yards faither on than the said gate, had been 
detained by his business, till by the time he reached 
Alloway it was the wizard hour, between night and 
morning. 

Though he was terrified with a blaze streaming from 
the kirk, yet as it is a well known fact that to turn back 
on these occasions i3 running by far the greatest risk 
of mischief, he prudently advanced on his road. W Inn 
he had reached the gate of the kirk-yard, he was sur- 
prised and entertained, through the ribs and arches oj 

" In a collection of miscellaneous papers of the Anti- 
quary Grose, which 1 purchased a few years since, I 
found the following letter written to him by Bums, 
when the former was .iecting the Antiquities of Scot- 
land. When 1 prerm- .t was on the second tradition 
that he afterwards formed the inimitable tale of ' Tarn 
o' Shanter,' I cannot doubt of it« being read with great 
interest. It were ' burning day light' to point out to 
a reader (and who is no' a readet of Burns?) the 
thoughts he afterwards transplanted into the rhythmi- 
eal narrative." O. G. 



an old Gothic window, which still faces the highway, 
to see a dance of witches merrily footing it round their 
old sooty blackguard master, who was keeping them 
all alive with the power of his bagpipe. The farmer 
stopping his horse to observe them a little, could plain- 
ly descry the faces of many old women of his acquaint- 
ance and neighborhood. Mow the gentleman wm 
dressed, tradition does not say ; but the ladies were all 
in their smocks : and one of them happening unluckily 
to have a smock which was considerably too short to 
answer all the put poses of that piece of dress, our far- 
mer was so tickled, that he involuntarily burst out, 
with a loud laugh, " Weel luppeu. Maggy \vi' the short 
sark !" and recollecting himself, instantly spurred hia 
horse to the top of his speed. 1 need not mention the 
universally known fact, that no diabolical power can 
pursue you beyond the middle of a running stream. 
Lucky it was for the poor fanner that tire river Doon 
was so near, for notwithstanding the speed of his horse , 
which was a good one, against he reached the middle 
of the arch of the bridge, and consequently the middle 
of the stream, the pursuing vengeful hags, were so 
close at his heels, that one of them actually sprung to- 
seize him ; but it was too late, nothing was on herj 
side of the stream but the horse's tail, winch imme*.- 
diately gave way at her infernal gripe, as if blasted bjry 
a stroke of lightning ; but the farmer was beyond hen 
teach. However, the unsightly, tailless condition of 
the vigorous steed was, to the last hour of the noble 
creature's life, an awful warning to the Carrick far' 
mers, not to stay too late in Ayr markets. 

The last relation I shall give, though equally truej' 
is not so well identified, as the two former, with regard* 
to the scene ; but as the best authorities give it for Afr" 
loway, I shall relate it. 

On a summer's evening, about the time that nature 
puts on her sables to mourn the expiry of the cheerful 
day. a shepherd boy belonging to a ' farmer in the im- 
mediate neighbourhood of Alloway kirk, had just folded 
his charge/and was returning home. Ashe passed the 
kirk in the adjoining field, he fell in with a crew of men 
and women who were busy pulling stems of the plant 
Ragwort. He observed that as each person pulled a 
Ragwort, he or she got astride of it, and called out, 
" up horsie !" on which the Kagwort flew off like Pe- 
gassus, through the air with its rider. The foolish boy 
likewise pulled his Kagwort, and cried with the rest 
■' up horsie I" and. strange to tell, away he flew with 
the company. The first stage at which the cavalcade 
stopped was a merchant's wine cellar in Bourdeaux, 
where, without saying by your leave, they quiffed 
away at the best 'the cellar could afford, until the 
morning, foe to the imps and works of darkness, threap 
ened to throw light on the matter, and frightened them 
from their carousals. 

The poor shepherd lad, being equally a stranger to 
the scene and the liquor, heedlessly got himself drunk : 
and when the rest took horse, he fell asleep, and was 
found so next day by some of the people belonging to 
the merchant. Somebody that understood Scotch, ask- 
ing him what he was, "he said he was such a-one's 
herd in Alloway. and by some means or other getting 
home again, he lived long to tell the world the won- 
drous tale. 

1 am, 4c. 



4 



QZ 



APPENDIX. 



^»©io< 



Ho. I.— Note A. See Life, p.3. 

The importance of the national establishment of 

parish-schools in Scotland, will justify a short account 

of the legislative provisions respecting it, especially as 

the subject has escaped the notice of all the historians. 

By an act of the king (James Vlth) and privy coun- 
cil of the 10th of December, 1616, it was recommended 
to his bishops to deale and, travel with the heritors 
(land proprietors) and the inhabitants of the respec- 
tive parishes in their respective dioceses, towaids the 
fixing upon " some certain, solid, and sure course" 
for settling and entertaining a school in each parish. 
This was ratified by a statute of Charles I. (the act 
1633, chap. 5.) which empowered the bishop, with the 
consent of the heritors of a parish, or of a majority of 
the inhabitants, if the heritors refused to attend the 
meeting, to assess every plough of land (that is, every 
farm in proportion to the number of ploughs upon it) 
with a certain sum for establishing a school. This 
was an ineffectual provision, as depending on the con- 
sent and pleasure of the heritors and inhabitants. 
Therefore a new order of things was introduced by 
Stat. 1646, chap. 17, which obliges the heritors and 
minister of each parish to meet and assess the several 
heritors with the requisite sum for building a school- 
house, and to elect a school-master, and modify a 
salary for him in all time to come. The salary is or- 
dered not to be under one hundred, nor above two 
hundred merks, that is, in our present sterling money, 
not under 5/. lis. 1 l-2d. nor above 11/. 2s. 3d. and 
the assessment is to be laid on the land in the same 
proportion as it is rated for the support of the clergy, 
and as it regulates the payment of the land-tax. But 
in case the heritors of any parish, or the majority of 
them, should fail to discharge this duty, then the per- 
sons forming what is called the Committee of Supply of 
the county (consisting of the principal landholders) or 
any five of them, are authorized by the statute to im- 
pose the assessment instead of them, on the repre- 
sentation of the presbytery in which the parish is situ- 
ated. To secure the choice of a proper teacher, the 
right of election by the heritors, by" a statute passed in 
1693, c'la;: 22, is made subject to 'the review and con- 
trol of the presbytery of the district, who have the ex- 
amination of the person proposed committed to them, 
both as to his qualifications as a teacher, and as to 
Lis proper deportment in the office when settled in it. 
The election of the heritors is therefore only a pre- 
sentment of a person for the approbation of the pres- 
bytery ; who, if they find him unfit, may declare his 
Incapacity, and thus oblige them to elect anew. So 
far is stated on unquestionable authority.* 

* The authority of A. Frazer Tytler, and David 
Hume, Esqrs. 



The legal salary of the school-master was not in 
siderable at the time it was fixed ; but by the decre 
in the value of money, it is now certainly inadequat 
to its object; and it' is painful to observe, that the 
landholders of Scotland resisted the humble applica- 
tion of the school-masters to the legislature for its in- 
crease, a few years ago. The number of parishes in 
Scotland is 877 ; and if we allow the salary of a school- 
master in each to be on an average, seven pound* 
sterling, the amount of the legal provision will be 
6,139/. sterling. If we suppose the wages paid by the 
scholars to amount to twice the sum, which is proba- 
bly beyond the truth, the total of the expenses among. 
1,526,492 persons, (the whole population of Scotland,) 
of this most important establishment, will be 18,4171. 
But on this, as well as on other subjects respecting 
Scotland, accurate information may soon be expected 
from Sir John Sinclair's Analysis of his Statistics, 
which will complete the immortal monument he has 
reared to his patriotism. 

The benefit arising in Scotland from the instruction 
of the poor, was soon felt ; and by an act of the British 
parliament, 4 Geo. I. Chap. 6, it is enacted, "that 
of the money's arising from the sale of the Scottish 
estates forfeited in the rebellion of 1715. 2000/. sterling 
shall be converted into a capital stock, the interest of 
which shall be laid out in erecting and maintaining 
schools in-the Highlands. The Society for propagating 
Christian Knowledge, incorporated in 1709, have ap- 
plied a large part of their fund for the same purpose. 
By their report, 1st May, 1795, the annual sum em 
ployed by them, in supporting their schools in the High- 
lands and Islands, was 3913/. 19s. Wd., in which are 
taught the English language, reading and writing, and 
the principles of religion. The schools of the society 
are additional to the legal schools, which from the 
great extent of many of the Highland parishes, were 
found insufficient. Besides these established schools, 
the lower classes of people in Scotland, where the 
parishes are large, often combine together, and estab- 
lish private schools of their own, at one of which it was 
that Burns received the principal part of hiseducation. 
So convinced indeed are the poor people of Scotland, 
by experience, of the benefit of instruction, to their 
children, that, though they may often find it difficult to 
feed and clothe them, some kind of school Instruction 
they almost alwavs procure them. 

J The influence of the school-establishment of Scotland 
! on the peasantry of that country, seems to have deci- 
ded by experience a question of legislation of the ut- 
most importance-whether a system of national in- 
struction for the poor be favourable to morals and 
good government. In the year 1698, Fletcher of Sa.too 
declared as follows : " There are at this day in Scot- 
land, two hundred thousand people begging from t.oor 



uate 



156 



APPENDIX, No. I 




to door. And though the number of them be perhaps 
double to what it was formerly, by reasi n of this 
present great distress, (a famine then prevailed.) yet in 
all times there have been about one hundred thousand 
of those vagabonds, who have lived without any le- 
gard or subjection either to the laws ot' the kind, or 
even to those of God and Nature; fathers incestuous- 
ly accompanying with their own daughters, the son 
with the mother, and the brother with the sister." lie 
goes on to say that no magistrate ever could discovei 
that they had ever been baptized, or in what way one 
in a hundred went out of the world. He accuses them 
as frequently guilty of robbery, and sometimes nf mur- 
der : " In years of plenty," says he, " many thousands 
of men meet together in the mountains, where they 
feast and riot for many days ; and at country wed- 
dings, markets, burials, and other public occasions, 
they are to be seen, both men and women, perpetually 
drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and lighting together."* 
'"'his highminded statesman, of whom it is said by a 
ntemporary " that he would lose his life readily to 
e his country, and would not do a base thing to 
it," thought the evil so great that he purposed as 
edy, the revival of domestic slavery, according 
practice of his adored republics in the classic 
A better remedy has been loon. I. which in the 
' apse of a century has proved effectual. The 
ute of 1096, the noble legacy of the'Scottish Parlia- 
ment to their country, began soon after this to ope- 
rate ; and happily, as the minds of the poor received 
instruction, the Union opened new channels of in- 
dustry, and new fields of action to their view. 

At the present day there is perhaps no country in 
fJEurope, in which, in proportion to its population, so 
i*fnall a number of crimes fall under the chastisement 
Bjffhe criminal law, as Scotland. We have the best 
authority for asserting, that on an average of thirty 
"rears, preceding the year 1707, the executions in that 
division of the island did not amount to six annually ; 
and one quarter-sessions for the town of Manchester 
only, has sen. according to Mr. heme, more felons to 
the plantations, than all the judges nl" Scotland usually 
do in the space of a year.f it might appear invidious 
to attempt a calculation of the many thousand indi- 
viduals in Manchester and its vicinity who can neither 
read nor write. A majority of those who can suffer 
the punishment of death for their crimes in evi rj pari 
of England are, it is believed, in this miserable state 
of ignorance. 

There <s now a legal provision for parochial schools, 
or rather for a school in each of the different town.-hips 
into which the country is divided, in several of the 
northern states of North America. They are, how- 
ever, of recent origin there, excepting in New England, 
where they were established in the last century, pro- 
bably about the same time as in Scotland, and by the 
same religious sect. In the I rotestant Cantons of 
Switzerland, the peasantry have the advantage of 
similar schools, though established and endowed iu a 
different manner. This is also the case in certain dis- 
tricts in England, particularly, in the northern pans of 
Yorkshire and of Lancashire, and in the counties of 
Westmoreland and Cumber-land. 

A law, providing for the instruction of the poor, was 
passed by the Pai liument of Ireland ; but the fund was 
diverted from its purpose, and the measure was entire- 
ly frustrated. ProA Pudor. 

The similarity of character between the Swiss and 
the Scotch, and" between the Scotch and the people of 
New England, can scarcely be overlooked. That it 
arises in a great measure from the similarity of their in- 
stitutions for instruction, cannot be questioned. It is 
no doubt increased by physical causes. With a su- 
perior degree of instruction, each of these nations pos- 

* Political Works of Andrew Fletcher, octavo Lon- 
don, 737, 141. 



1 Hume's Comme 
tnlioduciion, p. oJ. 



the Laws of Scotland, 



sesses a country that may be said to be sterile, in tht 
neighbourhood of countries comparatively rich. Hencs 
emigrations and the other effects on conduct and charac- 
ter which such circumstances naturally produce. Thl» 
subject is in a high degree curious. The points of dis» 
similarity between these nations might be traced tt) 
their causes also, and the whole investigation would 
perhaps admit of an approach to certainty in our con 
elusions, to which such inquiries seldom lead. How 
much superior in morals, in intellect, and in happi- 
ness, the peasantry of those parts of England are who 
have opportunities of instruction, to the same class in 
other situations, those who inquire into the subject 
will speedily discover. The peasantry of Westmore- 
land, and of the other districts mentioned- above, if 
their physical and moral qualities be taken together, 
are, in the opinion of the Editor, superior to the peas- 
antry of any part of the island. 

Note B. Seep. 3. 

It has been supposed that Scotland is less populous 
and less improved on account of this emigration ; but 
such conclusions are doubtful, if not wholly fallacious. 
The principle of population acts in no country to the 
full extent of its power: marriage is every where re- 
tarded beyond the period pointed out by nature, by the 
difficulty of supporting a family ; and this obstacle is 
greatest in long-settled communities. The emigration 
of a part of a people facilitates the marriage of the rest, 
by producing a relative increase in the means of sub- 
sistence. The arguments of Adam Smith, for a free 
export of corn, are perhaps applicable with less excep- 
tion to the free export of people. The more certain the 
vent, the greater the cultivation of the soil. This sub- 
ject has been wtll investigated by Sir James Stewart, 
whose principles have been expanded and further 
illustrated in a late truly philosophical Essay on Popu- 
lation. In fact, Scotland has increased in the number 
of its inhabitants iu the last forty years, as the Statis- 
tics of Sir John Sinclair clearly prove, but not in the 
ratio that some had supposed. The extent of the emi- 
gration of the Scots may be calculated with some de- 
gree of confidence from the proportionate number of 
the two sexes in Scotland ; a point that may be esta- 
blished pretty exsctly by an examination nf the invalu- 
able Statistics already mentioned. If wesurrpose that 
there is an equal number of male and female natives of 
Scotland, alive somewhere or other, the excess by 
which the females exceed the males in their own coun- 
try, may be considered to be equal to the number of 
Scotchmen living out of Scotland. But though the 
males born in Scotland be admitted to be as 13 to 12, 
and though some of the females emigrate as well as the 
maks. this mode of calculating would probably make 
the number of expatriated Scotchmen, at any one time 
ter than the truth. The unhealthy climates 
i they emigrate, the hazardous services in 
which so many of them engage, render the mean life of 
those who leave Scotland (to speak in the language of 
calculators) not perhaps of half the value of the mean 
life of those who remain. 

NoteC. Seep.G. 

In the punishment of this offence the Church employ- 
ed formerly the arm of the civil power. During the 
reign of .lames the YIth. (James the First of England,) 
i minal connexion between unmarried persons was 
made the subject of a particular statute, (See Hume's 
:-, of Scot/and, Vol. ii. p. 
.::.■'.) which, from its rigour, was never much enforced, 
and which has long fallen into disuse. When in the 
middle of the last century, the Puritans succeeded in 
the overthrow of the monarchy in both divisions of the 
island, fornication was a crime against which they di- 
rected their utmost zeal. It was made punishable 
with death in the second instance, (See Blackstone, b. 
iv. chap. 4. No. II.) Happily this sanguinary statute 
was swept away along with the other acts of the Com- 
monwealth, on the restoration of Charles II. to whose 
temper and manners it must have been peculiarly ab- 
horrent. And after the Revolution, when several sal 
utary acts passed during the suspension of the monar 
chy,' were re-enacted by the Scottish Parliament, par- 



APPENDIX, No. 2. 



157 



ticularly that for the establishment of parish schools, 
the statute punishing fornication with death, was suffer- 
ed to sleep in the grave of the stern fanatics who had 
given it birth. 

Note D. Seep. 6. 

The legitimation of children, by subsequent marriage 
became the Roman law under the Christian emperors. 
It was the cannon law of modern Europe, and has been 
established in Scotland from a very remote period. 
Thus a child born a bastard, if his parents afterwards 
marry, enjoys all the privileges of seniority over his 
brothers afterwards born in wedlock. In the Parlia- 
ment of Merton, in the reign of Henry III . the English 
clergy made a vigorous attempt to introduce this arti- 
cle into the law of England, and U was on this occasion 
that the Barons made the noted answer, since so often 
appealed to ; Quod nolunt leges Anglian mutare ; 
quae hue usque usitatee sunt approbates. With regard 
to what constitutes a marriage, the law of .Scotland, aa 
explained, p. 6. differs from the Roman law, which re- 
quired the ceremony to be performed in facie ecclesiee. 



Note A. See p. 12. 

It may interest some persons to peruse the first po- 
etical production of our Bard, and it is therefore ex- 
tracted from a kind of common place book, which he 
seems to have begun in his twentieth year ; and which 
he entitled, " Observations, Hints, Songs, Scraps of 
Poetry, Sfc. by Robert Burness, a man who had little 
art in making money, and still less in keeping it ; but 
was, however, a man of some sense, a great deal of 
honesty and unbounded good will to every creature, ra- 
tional or irrational. As he was but little indebted to a 
•cholastic education, and bred at a plough-tail, his per- 
formances must be strongly tinctured with his unpolish- 
ed rustic way of life ; but as I believe '.hey are really 
his own, it may be some entertainment .o a curious ob- 
server of human nature, to see how a ploughman thinks 
and feels uuder the pressure of love, ambition, anxiety, 
grief, with the like cares and passions, which however 
diversified by the modes and manners of life, operate 
pretty much alike, I believe, in all the species." 

" Pleasing when youth is long expired to trace, 
The forms our pencil or our pen design 'd, 

Such was rur youthful air, and shape, and face, 
Such the soft image of the youthful mind." 

Shenstone. 

This MS. book, to which our poet prefixed this ac- 
count of himself, and of his intention in preparing it, 
contains several of his earlier poems, some as they 
were, printed, and others in their embryo state. The 
song alluded to is that beginning, 



same page are notations very distant from each other 
as to time and place. 



EXTEMPORE. April, 1782. 



O why the deuce should I repine, 
And be an ill foreboder ; 



O once I lov'd a bonnie lass, 
Ay, and I love her still, 

See Poems, p. 79. 

It must be confessed that this song gives no indica- 
tion of the future genius of Burns ; but he himself 
seems to have been fond of it, probably from the recol- 
lections it excited. 

Note B, Seep. 15. 

At the time that our poet took the resolution of be- 
coming wise, he procured a little book of blank paper, 
with the purpose (expressed on the first page) of mak- 
ing farming memorandums upon it. These farming 
memorandums are curious enough ; many of them 
have beenwritten with a pencil, and are now obliterat- 
ed, or at least illegible. A considerable number are 
however legible, and a specimen may gratify the rea- 
der. It must be premised, that the poet kept the bock 
by him several years — that he wrote upon it, here and 
there, with the utmost irregularity, and that on the 



FRAGMENT. Tune—' Donald Rlue.' 

O leave novels, ye Mauchline belles, 
Ye're safer at your spinning wheel ; 

See Poems, p. 141*- M 



For he's far aboon Dunkel the night 
Maun whith the stick and a' that. ^ 

Mem. To get for Mr. Johnson these two songs \~ 
Molly, Molly, my dear honey.'—' The cock and the 
en, the deer in her den,* Sfc. 



Ah I Cloris! Sir Peter Halket, of Pitferran, the au- 
thor. — Nota, he married her — the heiress of Pitferran. 

Colonel George Crawford, the author of Down the 
bum Davy. 

Pinky-house, by J. Mitchell. 

My apron Deary ! and Amynta, by Sir G. Elliot. 

Willie was a wanton Wag, was made on Walkln 
shaw, of Walkinshaw, near Paisley. 

floe na a laddie but ane, Mr. C'lunzee. 

The bonnie wee thing — beautiful — Lundie's Dreams- 
very beautiful. 

He till't and she till'l — assez bien. 

Armstrong's Fareu-ell — fine. 

The author of the Highland Queen was a Mr. M'« 
Iver, Purser of the Solboy. 

Fife an' a' the land about it, R . Furgusson. 

The author of The bush aboon Traquair, was-a Dr. 
Stewart. 

Polwart on the Green, composed by Captain John 
Drummond M'Grigor of Bochaldie. 

Mem. To inquire if Mrs. Cochburn was the author 
of I have seen the smiling, Sfc. 



The above may serve as a specimen. 
n farming are obliterated. 



NoteC, See pages 30, ! 



Rules and Regulations to be observed in the Baehelct 
Club. 

1st. The club shall meet at Tarbolton every fotirt 
Monday night, when a question on any subject sbal 
be proposed, disputed points of religion, only excepted, 
in the manner hereafter directed; which question u 
to be debated in the club, each member taking what 
ever side he thinks proper. 

2d. When the club is met, the president, or, he faiV 
ing, some one of the members, till he come, shall takf 
his seat ; then the other members shall seat them- 
; those who are for one side ot the question, oi 
the president's right hand ; and those who are for thj 
other side, on his left ; which of them shall have th« 
right hand is to be determined by the president. Tbt 
president and four of the members being present, shall 
have power to transact any ordinary part of the socie- 
ty's business. 

3d. The club met and seated, the president shall 
read the question out of the club's book of records, 
(which book is always to be kept by the president,) 
then the two members nearest the president shall cast 
lots who of them shall speak first, and according as 



.58 



APPENDIX, No. 2. 



the lot shall determine, the member nearest the pre- 
sident on that side shall deliver his opinion, and the 
member nearest on the other side shall reply to him ; 
tVien the second member on the side that spoke first ; 
then the second member on the side that spoke second; 
and so on to the end of the company : but if there be 
fewer members on the one side than the other, when all 
the members of the .east side have spoken according to 
their places, any of them, as they please among them- 
selves, may reply to the remaining members oftbe op- 
posite side : when both sides have spoken, the president 
shall give his opinion, after which they may go over it 
a Becond or more times, and so continue the question. 

4th. The club shall then proceed to the choice of a 
question for the subject of next night's meeting. The 
Kresident shall first propose one, and any other mem- 
Mrwho chooses may propose more question* ; and 
Whatever one of them is most agreeable to the majo- 
rity of members, shall be the subject of debate next 
- Vib-night. 

5th. The club shall, lastly, elect a new president for 
the next meeting : the president shall first name one, 
jhen any of the club may name another, and whoever 
of them has the majority of votes shall be duly elected ; 
allowing the president the first vote, and the casting 
vote upon a par, but none other. Then after a general 
toast to mistresses of the club, they shall dismiss. 

6th. There shall be no private conversation carried 
on during the time of debate, nor shall any member in- 
terrupt anothei while he is speaking, under the penalt; 
of a reprimand from the president for the first fault, 
doubling his share of the reckoning for the second, 
trebling it for the third, and so on in proportion for every 
other fault, provided always, however, that any mem- 
ber may speak at any time after leave asked, and given 
by the president. All swearing and profane language, 
'Hod particularly all obscene and indecent conversa- 
tion, is strictlv prohibited, under the same penalty as 
afoi esaid in the first clause of this article. 

7th. No member, on any pretence whatever, shall 
mention any of the club's affairs to any other person 
but a brother member, under the pain of being exclud- 
ed ; and particularly if any member shall reveal any 
of the speeches or affairs of the club, with a view to 
ridicule or laugh at any of the rest of the members, he 
shall be forever excommunicated from the society; 
and the rest of the members are desired, as much as 
possible, to avoid, and have uo communication with 
him as a friend or comrade. 

8th. Every member shall attend at the meetings,with- 
oui he can give a proper excuse for not attending ; 
mid it is desired that every one who cannot attend, 
will send his excuse with some other member ; and he 
who shall be absent three meetings without sending 
euch excuse, shall be summoned to the club-night, 
when if he fail to appear, or send an excuse he shall be 
excluded. 



9th. The club shall not consist of more than sixteen 
members, all bachelors, belonging to the parish of Tar- 
bolton: except a brother member mat ry, and in that case 
he may be continued, if the majority of the club think 
proper. No person shall be admitted a member of this 
society, without the unanimous consent of the club ; 
and any member may withdraw from the club altoge- 
ther, by giving a notice to the president in writing of 
his departure. 

10th. Every man proper for a member of this society, 
must have a frank, honest, open heart ; above any 
thing dirty or mean ; and must be a profest lover of 
one or more of the female sex. No haughty, self-con- 
ceited person, who looks upon himself as superior to 
the rest of the club, and especially no mean-spirited, 
worldly mortal, whose only will is to heap up money, 
•hall upon any pretence whatever be admitted. In 
short, the proper person for this society is, a cheerful, 
honest hearted lad, who. if he has a friend that is 
true, and a rniauess that is kind, and as much wealth 



as genteelly to make both ends meet—is just as happy 
as this world can make him . 



NoteD. See p. 84. 

A great number of manuscript poems were found 
among the papers of Burns, addressed to him by ad- 
mirers of his genius, from different parts of Britain, 
as well as from Ireland and America. Among these 
was a poetical epistle from Mr. Telford, of Shrews- 
bury, of superior merit. It is wtitten in the dialect 
of Scotland, (of which country Mr. Telford is a native,) 
and in the versification generally employed by our poet 
himself. Its object is to recommend to him other sub- 
ject of a serious nature, similar to that of the Cotter's 
Saturday Night ; and the reader will find that the 
advice is happily enforced by example. It would have 
given the editor pleasure to have inserted the whole of 
this poem, which he hopes will one day see the light : 
he is happy to have obtained, in the mean time, his 
friend Mr. Telford's permission to insert the folio-wing 
extracts : 



Pursue, O Burns ! thy happy style 
" Those manner-painting strains," that while 
They bear me northward mony a mile, 

Recall the days, 
When tender joys, with pleasing smile, 

Bless'd my young ways. 

I see my fond companions rise, 
I join the happy village joys, 
I see our green hills touch the skies. 

And through the woods. 
I hear the river's rushing noise, 

its roaring floods.* 

No distant Swiss with warmer glow, 
E'er heard his native music flow, 
Nor could his wishes stronger grow, 

Than still have mine, 
When up this ancient mountf I go, 
With songs of thine. 

O happy Bard 1 thy gen'rous flame 
Was given to raise thy country's fame : 
For this thy charming numbers came— 

Thy matchless lays ; 
Then sing, and save her virtuous name, 

To latest days. 

But mony a theme awaits thy muse, 
Fine as thy Cotter's sacred views, 
Then in such verse thy soul infuse, 

With holy air ; 
And sing the course the pious choose, 

With all thy care. 

How with religious awe impressed, 
They open lay the guileless breast, 
And youth and age with fears distress'd, 

All due prepare, 
The symbols of eternal rest 

Devout to sbare.J 

How down ilk lang withdrawing hill, 
Successive crowds the valleys fill ; 
■While pure religious converse still 

Beguiles the way, 
And gives a cast to youthful will, 

To suit the day. 

* The banks of Eslc, in Dumfries-shire, are here a!, 
luded to. 

t A beautiful little mount, which stands immediate- 
ly before, or rather forms a part of Shrewsbury castle, 
a seat of Sir William Pulteney, baronet. 

J The Sacrament, generally administered in the 
country parishes of Scotland in the open air. E. 



APPENDIX, No. 3. 



159 



How placed along the sautd bum d, 
Their hoary pastor's looks adored, -- 
Hit roice with peace and blessing stored, 

Sent from above ; 
And faith, and hope, and joy afford, 

And boundless love. 

O'er this, with warm seraphic glow, 
Celestial beings, pleased bow ; 
And whisper'd hear the holy vow, 

'Mid grateful tears ; 
And mark amid such scenes below, 

Their future peers. 



O mark the awful solemn scene !* 
When hoary winter clothes the plain, 
Along the snowy hills is seen 

Approaching slow ; 
In mourning weeds, the village train, 
In silent wo. 

Some much respected brother's bier 
(By turns the pious task they share) 
With heavy hearts they forward bear 

Along the path, 
Where nei'bours saw in dusky air,t 

The light of death. 

And when they pass the rocky how, 
Where binwood bushes o'er them flow, 
And move around the rising knowe, 

Where far away 
The kirk-yard trees are seen to grow, 

By th' water brae. 

Assembled round the narrow grave, 
While o'er them wintery tempests rave, 
In the cold wind their gray locks wave, 

As low they lay 
Their brother's body 'mongst the iave 
Of parent clay. 

Expressive looks from each declare 
The griefs within, their bosoms bear ; 
One holy bow devout they share, 

Then home return, 
And think o'er all the virtues fair 

Of him they mourn. 



Say how by early lessons taught, 
(Truth's pleasing air is willing caught) 
Congenial to th' untainted thought, 

The shepherd boy, 
Who tends his flocks on lonely height, 

Feels holy joy. 

Is aught on earth so lovely known, 
On sabbath morn and far alone, 
His guileless soul all naked shown 
Before his God — 
Such pray'rs must welcome reach the throne, 
And bless 'd abode. 

O tell 1 with what a heart felt joy, 
The parent eyes the virtuous boy ; 
And all his constant, kind employ, 

Is how to give 
The best of lear he can enjoy, 

As means to live. 

The parish-school, its curious site, 
The master who can clear indite, 
And lead him on to count and write, 

Demand thy care ; 
Nor pass the ploughman's school at night 

Without a share. 

* A Scotch funeral. E. 

t This alludes to a superstition prevalent in Eskdale, 
^»d Annandale, that a light precedes in the night every 
#aeral, marking the precise path it is to pass. E. 




Nor yet the tenty curious lad, 
Who e'er the ingle hings his head, 
And begs of nei'bours books to read ' 

From hence arise 
Thy country's sons, who far are spread, 

Baith bauld and wise. 



The bonnie lasses, as they spin, 
Perhaps with Allan's sangs begin, 
How Tay and Tweed smooth flowing rin 

Through flowery hows ; 
Where Shepherd lads their sweethearts win 

With earnest vows. 



May a' their virtuous thoughts engage 
While playful youth and placid age 

Tn concert join, 
To bless the bard, who, gay or sage, 

Improves the mind. 



Long may their harmless, simple 
Nature's own pure emotions raise ; 
May still the dear romantic blaze 

Of purest love, 
Their bosoms warm to latest days, 

And ay improve. 

May still each fond attachment glow, 
O'er woods o'er streams, o'er hills of snow, 
May rugged rocks still dearer grow ; 

And may their souls 
Even love the warlock glens which through 

The tempest howls. 

To eternize such themes as these, 
And all their happy manners seize, 
Will every virtuous bosom please ; 
And high in fame 
To future times will justly raise 

Thy patriot name. 

While all the venal tribes decay, 
That bask in flattery's flaunting ray-- 
The noisome vermin of a day, 

Thy works shall gain 
O'er every mind a boundless sway, 

A lasting reign. 

When winter binds the harden'd plains, 
Around each hearth, the hoary swains 
Still teach the rising youth thy strains 

And anxious say, 
Our blessing with our sons remains. 

And Burns'B Lay I 



No. III. 

{First inserted in Vie Second Edition.) 

The editor has particular pleasure in presenting to 
the public the following letter, to the due understand- 
ing of which a few previous observations are ne- 
cessary. 

The Biographer of Burns was naturally desirous 
of hearing the opinon of the friend and brother of the 
poet, on the manner in which he had executed his 
task, before a second edition should be committed to 
the press. He had the satisfaction of receiving this 
opinion, in a letter dated the 21th of August, approv- 
ing of the Life in very obliging terms, and offering 
one or two trivial corrections as to names and dates 
chiefly, which are made in this edition. One or two 
observations were offered of a different kind. In the 
319th page of the first volume, first edition, a quota- 
tion is made from the pastoral song, Ettrick Banks, 
and an explanation given of the phrase "mony feck,™ 
which occurs in this quotation. Supposing the sense 
to be complete after " mony," the editor had consider- 
ed " feek" a rustick oath which confirmed the asser- 
tion. The words were therefore separated by a eons- 



60 



APPENDIX, No. 3. 



ma. Mr. Burns considered this an error. "Feck 
he presumes, is the Scottish word for quantity, and 
" mony feck," to mean simply, very many. The 
editor in yielding to this authority, expressed some 
hesitation, and hinted that the phrase " mony feck" 
was, in Burn's sense, a pleonasm or barbarism which 
deforrajd this beautiful song.* His reply to 
observation makes the first clause of the following 
letter. 

In the same communication he informed me, that the 
Mirror and the Lounger were proposed by him to the 
Conversation Club of Mauchline, and that he had 
thoughts of giving me his sentiments on the remarks I 
had made respecting the fitness of such works for such 
jf ocieties. The observations of such a man on such a 
■H^iect, the Editor conceived, would be received with 
parti:"!ar interest by the public . and, having pressed 
earnestly for them, they will be found in the following 
letter. Of the value of this communication, delicacy 
towards his very respectable correspondent prevents 
him from expressing his opinion. '] he oiiginal letter 
's in the hands of Messrs. Caddell and fjavies. 

Dinning, Dumfriesshire, 21th Oct. 1800. 

DEAR STR, 

Yours of the 17th inst. came to my hand yesterday, 
and I sit down this afternoon to write you in return : 
but when 1 shall be able to finish all I wish to say to 
you, 1 cannot tell. 1 am sorry your conviction is not 
complete respecting feck. There is no doubt, that if 
you take two English words which appear synony- 
mous to mony feck, and judge by the rules of English 
construction, it will appear a barbarism. I believe if 
you take this mode of translating from any language, 
the effect will frequently be the same. But if you take 
the expression mony frck to have, as 1 have stated it, 
the same meaning with the English expression very 
many, (and such license every translator must be al- 
lowed, especially when he translates from a simple 
' dialect which has never been subjected to rule, and 
where the precise meaning of words is of consequence 
not minutely attended to.) it will be well enough. One 
tiling I am certain of, that ours is the sense universal- 
ly understood in the country ; and I believe no- Scots- 
man, who has lived contented at home, pleased with 
the simple manners, the simple melodies, and the sim- 
ple dialect of his native country, unvitiated by foreign 
intercourse, " whose soul proud science never taught 
to stray," ever discovered barbarism in the song of 
Ettrick Banks. 

The story you have heard of the gable of my father's 
house falling down, is simply as follows :j"--When my 
father built his " clay biggin," he put in two stone- 
jambs, as they are called, and a lintel, carrying up a 
chimney in his clay gable. The consequence was, that 
as the 'gable subsided, the jambs, remaining firm, 
threw it off its centre ; and, one very stormy morning, 
when my brother was nine or ten days old, a little 
before daylight a part of the gable fell out. and the rest 
appeared so shattered, that my mother, with the young 
poet, had to be carried through the storm to a neigh- 
bour 's house, where they remained a week till their 
own dwelling was adjusted. That you may not think 
too meanly of this house, or my father's taste in build- 
ing, by supposing the poet's description in Tlit /isiun 
(which is entirely a fancy picture) applicable to it, 
allow me to take notice to you, that the house consist- 
ed of a kitchen in out end, and a room in the other, 
with a fire place and chimney, that my father had 
constructed a concealed bed in the kitchen, with a 

* The correction made by Gilbert Burns has also 
been suggested by a writer in the Monthly Magazine, 
under the signature of Albion ; who, for taking this 
trouble, and for mentioning the author of the poem of 
Dun/iochi-head deserves the Editor's thanks. 

• The Editor had heard a report that the poet was 
bprn in the midst of a storm which blew down a part [ 
of the house, E 



small closet at the end, of the same materials with tha 
house ; and, when altogether cast over, outside and in, 
with lime, it had a neat comfortable appearance, such 
as no family of the same rank, in the present improved 
style of living, would think themselves ill-lodged in. 
I wish likewise to take notice, in passing, that although 
the " Cotter," in the Saturday Night, is an exact copy 
of my father in his manners, his family-devotion, and 
exhortations, yet the other parts of the description do 
not apply to our family. None of us were ever "at 
service out amang the neebors roun." Instead of our 
depositing our " sairwon penny fee" with our parents, 
my father laboured hard, and lived with the most ri- 
gid economy , that he might be able to keep his children 
at home, thereby having an opportunity of watching 
the progress of our young minds and forming in them 
earlier habits of piety and virtue ; and from this mo- 
tive alone did he engage in farming, the source of all 
his difficulties and distresses. 

When I threatened yon in my last with a long letter 
on the subject of the books I recommended to the 
Mauchline club, and the effects of refinement of taste 
on the labouring classes of men, I meant merely, that 
1 wished to write you on that subject with a view that, 
in some future communication to the public, you might 
take up the subject more at large ; that, by means of 
your happy manner of writing, the attention of people 
of power and influence might be fixed on it. I had lit- 
t'e expectation, however, that I should oveicome my 
indolence, and the difficulty of arranging my thoughts 
so far as to put my threat in execution ; tillsbme time 
ago, before 1 had finished my harvest, having a call 
from Mr. Ewart,* with a message from you, pressing 
me to the performance of this task, 1 thought myself no 
longer at liberty to decline it, and resolved to set about 
it with my first leisure. I will now, therefore, endea- 
vour to lay before you what has occurred to my mind, 
on a subject where people capable of observation, and 
of placing their remarks in a proper point of view, 
have seldom an opportunity of making their remarks 
on real life. In doing this, I may perhaps be led some- 
times to write more in the manner of a person commu- 
nicating information to you which you did not know 
before, and at other times more in the style of egotism, 
than I would choose to do to any person, in whose can- 
dour, and even personal good will, I had less confi- 
dence. 

There are two several lines of study that open to 
every man as he enters life: the one, the general sci- 
ence'of life, of duty, and of happiness ; the other, th» 
particular arts of his employment or situation in so- 
ciety, and the several branches of knowledge there 
with connected. This last is certainly indispensable, 
as nothing can he more disgraceful than ignorance in 
the way of one's own profession ; and whatever a 
man's speculative knowledge may be, if he is ill-in- 
formed there, he can neither be a useful nor a respect- 
able member of society. It is nevertheless true, that 
" the proper study of mankind is man:" to consider 
what duties are incumbent on him as a rational crea- 
ture, and a member of society ; how he may increase 
or secure his happiness : and how he may prevent or 
soften the many miseries incident to human life. I 
think the pursuit of happpiness is too frequently con- 
fined to the endeavour after the acquisition of wealth. 
1 do not wish to be considered as an idle declaimer 
against riches, which, alter all that can be said against 
them, will still be considered by men of common sense 
as objects of importance ; and poverty will be felt as 
a sore evil, after all the fine things that can be said of 
its advantages : on the contrary 1 am of opinion, tha« 
a great pioportion of the miseries of life arise from 
the want of economy, and a prudent attention to mo- 
ney, oi the ill-directed or intemperate pursuit of it. 
lint however valuable riches may be as the means of 
comfort, independence, and the pleasure of doing good 
to others, yet I am of opinion, that they may be, and 
frequently are, purchased at too great a cost, and that 
itices are made in the pursuit, which the acquisi- 
tion cannot compensate. 1 remember hearing my 

* The Editor's friend, Mr. Peter Ewart, of Maacbe> 



APPENDIX, No. 3. 



16] 



worthy teacher, Mr. Murdoch, relate an anecdote to 
my father, which I think 6ets this matter in a strong 
light, and perhaps was the origin, or at least tended to 
promote this way of thinking in me. When Mr. Mur- 
doch left Alloway, he went to teach and reside in the 
family of an opulent farmer who had a number of sons. 
A neighbour coming on a visit, in the course of conver- 
sation, asked the father how he meant to dispose of his 
sons. The father replied that he had not determined. 
The visitor said, that were he in his place he would 
give them all good education and send them abroad, 
without (perhaps) having a precise idea where. The 
father objected, that many young men lost their health 
in foreign countries, and many their lives. True, re- 
plied the visitor, but as you have a number of sons, it 
will be strange if some one of them does not live and 
make a fortune. 

Let any person who has the feelings of a father, 
comment on this story ; but though few will avow, 
even to themselves, that such views govern their con- 
duct, yet do we not daily see people shipping off their 
sous, (and who would do so by their daughters also, 
if there were any demaud for them,) that they may be 
rich or perish ! 

The education of the lower clasres is seldom con- 
sidered in any other point of view than as the means 
of raising them from that station to which they were 
born, and of making a fortune. I am ignorant of the 
mysteries of the art of acquiring a fortune without 
any thing to begin with : and cannot calculate, with 
any degree of exactness, the difficulties to be surmount- 
ed, the mortifications to be suffered, and the degrada- 
tion of character to be submitted to, in lending one's 
self to be the minister of other people's vices, or in the 
practice of rapine, fraud, oppression, or dissimulation, 
in the progress; but even when the wished for end is 
attained, it may be questioned whether happiness be 
much increased by the change. When I have seen a 
fortunate adventurer of the lower ranks of life return- 
ed from the East or West Indies, with all the hauteur 
of a vulgar mind accustomed to be served by slaves, 
assuming a character which, from the early habits of 
life, he is ill-fitted to support, displaying magnificence 
which raises the envy of some, and the contempt of 
others, claiming an equality with the great, which 
they are unwilliug to allow ; inly pining at the prece- 
dence of the hereditary gentry ; maddened by the po- 
lished insolence of some of the unworthy part of tliem ; 
seeking pleasure in the socieiy of men who can conde- 
scend to flatter him, and listen to his absurdity for the 
sake of a good dinner and good wine : I cannot avoid 
concluding, that his brother, or companion, who, by a 
diligent application to the labours of agriculture, or 
some useful mechanic employment, and the careful 
husbanding of his gains, has acquired a competence in 
his stavion, is a much happier, and, in the eye of a 
person who can take an enlarged view of mankind, a 
much more respectable man. 

But the votaries of weaith may be considered as a 
great number of candidates striving for a few prizes : 
and whatever addition the successful may make to 
their pleasure or happiness, the disappointed wifl al- 
ways have more to suffer, I am afraid, than those who 
abide contented in the station to which they were born. 
I wish, therefore, the education of the lower 
classes to be promoted and directed to their improve- 
ment as men, as the means of increasing theii virtue. 
and opening to them new and dignified sources of 
pleasure and happiness. I have heard some people 
object to the education of the lower classes of men, as 
rendering them less useful, by abstracting them from 
their proper business ; others, as tending to make 
them saucy to their superiors, impatient of their con- 
dition, and turbulent subjects ; while you, with more 
humanity, have your fears alarmed, lest the delicaey 
of mind, induced by that sort of education and read- 
ing 1 recommend, should render the evils of their situ- 
ation insupportable to them. I wish to examine the 
validity of each of these objections, beginning with 
the one you have mentioned. 



I do not 

favourite books, the Mirror and Lounger, although 



to controvert your criticism of my 



understand there are people who think themselves 
judges, who do not agree with you. The acquisition 
of knowledge, except what is connected with human 
life and conduct, or the particular business of his em- 
ployment., does not appear to me to be the Attest pur- 
suit for a peasant. I would say with the poet, 

" How empty learning, and how vain is art 

Save when it guides the life, and mends the heart." 

There seems to be a considerable latitude in the use 
of the word taste. I understand it to be the percep- 
tion and relish of beauty, order, or any thing, the con- 
templation of which gives pleasure and delight to 
the mind. 1 suppose it is in this sense you wish it to 
be understood, if lam right, the taste which these 
books are calculaced to cultivate, (besides the taste^^ 
for fine writing, which many of the papers tend to ipfeti|H 
prove and to gratify.) is what is proper, consistent, 
and becoming in human character and conduct, as al- 
most every paper relates to these subjects. J 

I am sorry I have not these books by me, that I 
might point out some instances. 1 remember two, one 
the beautiful story of l.a Koch, where, beside the 
pleasure one derives from a beautiful simple story, 
told in M'Kenzie's happiest manner, the mind is led 
to taste with heartfelt rapture, the consolation to be 
derived in deep affliction, from habitual devotion and 
trust in Almighty Cod. The other, the story of gen- 
eral W , when the reader is led to have a high 

relish for that firmness of mind which disregards ap- 
pearances, the common forms and vanities of life, for 
the sake of doing justice in a case which was out of 
the reach of human laws. , 

Allow me then to remark, that if the morality of 
these books is subordinate to the cultivation of taste : 
that taste, that refinement of mind and delicacy of 
sentiment which they are intended to give, arc. the 
strongest guard and surest foundation of morality and 
virtue.— Other moralists guard, as it were, the over- 
act : these papers, by exalting duty into sentiment, 
are calculated to make every deviation from rectitude 
and propriety of conduct, painful to the mind, 

" Whose temper'd powers, 
Refine atleneth, and every passion wears, 
A chaster, milder, more attractive mein." 

I readily grant you, that the refinement of mind 
which I contend for, increases our sensibility to the 
evils of life ! but what station of life is without its evils ! 
There seems to be no such thing as perfect happiness 
in this world, and we must balance the pleasure and 
the pain which we derive from taste, before we can 
properly appreciate it in the case before us. I appre- 
hend that on a minute examination it will appear, that 
the evils peculiar to the lower ranks of life, derive their 
power to wound us, more from the suggestions of false 
pride, and " contagion of luxury, weak and vile," 
than the refinement of our taste. It was a favourite 
remark of my brother's, that there was no part of the 
constitution of our nature, to which we were more 
indebted, than that by which'" Custom makes Ihingg 
famihar and easy" (a copy Mr. Murdoch used to set 
us to write.) and there is little labour which custom 
will not make easy to a man in health, if he is not 
ashamed of his employment, or does not begin to 
compare his situation with those he may see going 
about at their ease. 

But the man of enlarged mind feels the respect due 
to him as a man : he has learned that no employment 
is dishonourable in itself ; that while he performs 
aright the duties of that station in which God has 
placed him, he is as great as a king in the eyes of Hifn 
whom he is principally desirous to please : for the man 
of taste, who is constantly obliged to labour, must of 
necessity be religious. If you teach him only to rea- 
son, you may make him an atheist, a demagogue, or 
any vile thing : but if you teach him to feel, his feeU 
ings can only find their proper and natural relief in de> 
votiou and religious resignation. He knows that those 
people who are to appearance at ease, are not without 



T62 



APPENDIX, No. 3. 



their share of evils, and that even toil itself is not des- 
titute of advantages. He listens to the words of his fa- 
vourite poet : 

** O mortal man that livest here by toil, 

Cease to repine, and grudge thy hard estate 1 
That like an emmet thou must ever moil, 

la a sad sentence of an ancient date ; 
And, certes, there is for it reason great ; 

Although sometimes it makes thee weep and wail, 
And curse thy star, and early drudge, and late ; 

Withouten that would come an heavier bale, 
Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale I" 

And, while he repeats the words, the grateful recol- 
tion comes across his mind, how often has he derived 
^ jneffabie pleasure from the sweet song of " Nature's 
'darling child." 1 can say, from my own experience, 
that there is no sort of farm-labour inconsistent with 
the most refined and pleasurable stale of the mind 
that I am acquainted with, tin ashing alone excepted. 
That, indeed, I have always considered as insupporta- 
ble drudgery, and think the ingenious mechanic who 
invented the threshing machine, ought to have a statue 
among the benefactors of his country, and should be 
placed in the niche next to the person who introduced 
the culture of potatoes into this island. 

Perhaps the thing of most importance in the educa- 
tion of the common people is, to prevent the intrusion 
of artificial wants. I bless the memory of my woithy 
father for almost everything in the dispositions of my 
mir.d, and my habits of life, which I can approve of : 
and for none more than the pains he took to impress 
my mind with the sentiment, that nothing was more 
unworthy the character of a man, than that his happi- 
ness should in the least depend on what he should eat 
or drink. So early did he impress my mind with this, 
that although 1 was as fond of sweetmeats' as children 
generally are, yet 1 seldom laid out any of the half- 
" peuce which relations or neighbours gave me at fairs, 
>u the purchase of them ; and ill did, every mouthful 
1 swallowed was accompanied w ih shame and re 
morse J and to ibis hour, 1 never indulge in the use of 
any delicacy, but I feel a consideiable degiee of self- 
'•eproach and alarm for the degi adation of the human 
character. Such a habit of thinking I consider as of 
great consequence, both to the virtue and happiness 
of men in the lower ranks of life. — And thus, Sir, i 
am of opinion, that if their minds are early impressed 
with a sense of the dignity of man, as such, with the 
lo*e of independence and of industry, economy and 
temperance, as the most obvious means of making 
themselves independent, and the virtues most becom- 
ing their situation, and necessary to their happiness ; 
men in the lower ranks of life may partake of the 
pleasures to be derived from the perusal of books cal- 
culated to improve the mind and and refine the tarte, 
without any danger of becoming more unhappy in their 
situation or discontented with it. Nor do I think there 
is any danger of their becoming less useful. There 
are some hours every day that the most constant la- 
bourer is neither at work nor asleep. These hours are 
either appropriated to amusement, or to sloth. If a 
taste for employing these hours in reading were culti- 
vated, I do not suppose that the return to labour 
would be more difficult. Every one will allow, that 
the attachment to idle amusements, or even to sloth, 
has as powerful a tendency to abstract men from their 
proper business, as the attachment to books ; while 
the one dissipates the mind, and the other tends to 
increase its powers of self-government. 

To those who are afraid that the improvement of 
the minds of the common people might be dangerous 
to the state, or the established order of society, I would 
remark, that turbulence and commotion are certainly 
very inimical to the feelings of a refined mind. Let 
the matter De brought to the test of experience had 
observation. Of what description of people are mobs 
and insurrections composed? Are they not universal- 
ly owing to the want of enlargement and improvement 
of mind among the common people ! Nay, let any 
one recollect the characters of those who formed the 
calmer and more deliberate associations, which lately 
gave to much alarm to the government of this country. 



I suppose few of the common people who were to b« 
found in such societies, had the education and turn of 
mind I have been endeavouring to recommend. Allow 
me to suggest one reason for endeavouring to enlighten 
the minds of the common people. Their morals have 
hitherto been guarded by a sort of dim religious awe, 
which from a variety of causes, seems wearing off. I 
think the alteration in this respect considerable, in the 
short period of my observation. I have already given 
my opinion of the effects of refinement of mind on 
morals and virtue. Whenever vulgar minds begin to 
shake off the dogmas of the religion in which they 
have been educated, the progress is quick and imme- 
diate to downright infidelity ; and nothing but refine- 
ment of mind can enable them to distinguish between, 
the pure essence of religion, and the gross systems 
which men have been perpetually connecting it with. 
In addition to what has already been done for the 
education of the common people of this country, in the 
establishment of parish schools, 1 wish to see the sala- 
ries augmented in some proportion to the present ex- 
pense of living, and the earnings of people of similar 
rank, endowments and usefulness in society ; and 1 
hope that the liberality of the present age will be no 
longer disgraced by refusing, to so useful a class of 
men, such encouragement as may make parish schoola 
worth the attention of men fitted for the important 
duties of that office. In filling up the vacancies, I 
would have more attention paid to the candidate's 
capacity of reading the English language with grace 
and propriety ; to his understanding thoroughly, and 
having a high relish for the beauties ofEnglish authors, 
both in poetry and prose ; to that "good sense and 
Knowledge of human natuie which would enable him 
to acquire some influence on the minds and affections 
of his scholars . to the general worth of his character, 
and the love of his king and his country, than to his 
proficiency in the knowledge of Latin and Greek. I 
would then have a sort of high English class establish- 
ed, not only for the purpose of teaching the pupils to 
read in that graceful and agreeable manner that might 
make them fond of reading, but to make them under- 
stand what they read, and discover the beauties of the 
author, in composition and sentiment. I would have 
established in every parish, a small circulating library, 
consisting of the books which the young people had 
read extracts from in the collections they had read at 
school, and any other books well calculated to refine 
the mind, improve the moral feelings, recommend the 
practice of virtue, and communicate -such knowledge 
as might he useful and suitable to the labouring class- 
es of men. I would have the school-master act as 
librarian, and in recommending books to his young 
friends, formerly his pupils, and letting in the light of 
them upon their young minds, he should have the as- 
sistance of the minister. If once such education were 
become general, the low delights of the public house, 
and other scenes of riot and depravity, would be con- 
temned and neglected ; while industry, order, cleanli- 
ness, and every virtue which taste and independence 
of mind could recommend, would prevail and flourish. 
Thus possessed of a virtuous and enlightened populace, 
with high delight 1 should consider my native country 
as the head of all the nations of the earth, ancient or 
modern. 

Thus, Sir, have I executed my threat to the fullest 
extent, in regard to the length of my letter. If 1 had 
not presumed on doing it more to my liking, I should 
no*, have undertaken it ; but 1 have not time to at- 
tempt it anew ; nor, if 1 would, am 1 certain that I 
should succeed any better. 1 have learned to have 
less confidence in my capacity of writing on Buch 
subjects 

I am much obliged by you kind inquiries about my 
situation and prospects. I am much pleased with the 
soil of this farm, and with the terms on which I pos- 
sess it. I receive great encouragement likewise in 
building, enclosing, and other conveniences, from my 
landlord, Mr. G. S. Monteith, whose general charac- 
ter and conduct, as a landlord and country gentleman, 
1 am highly pleased with. But the land is in such a 
state as to require a jonsiderable immediate outlay 
of money in the purchase of manure, the grubbing of 



APPENDIX, No. 3. 



16* 



ftnurti-wood, removing of stones, &c. which twelve 
veare' struggle with a farm of a cold ungrateful soil 
nas but ill prepared me for. If 1 can get these things 
done, however, to my mind, I think there is next lo a 
certainty that in five or six years I shall be in a hope- 
ful way of attaining a situation which I think as eligi- 
ble for happiness as any one I know ; for I have al- 
ways been of opinion, that if a man bred to the habits 
of a farming life, who possesses a farm of good soil, on 
such terms as enables him easily to pay all demands, 
is not happy, he ought to look somewhere else than to 
hi» situation for the causes of his uneasiness. 

1 b«g you will present my most respectful compli- 



ments *.o Mrs. Currie, and remember me to Mr. and 
Mrs. RoBcoe, and Mr. Roscoe, junior, whose kind at- 
tentions to me, when in Liverpool, 1 shall never forget. 

I am, dear Sir, 

Your most obedient, and 

Much obliged, bumble Servant, 

GILBERT BURNS. 



To James Currie, M. D. F. R 
Liverpool. 



rims. 





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